Lunar Eclipse

Here's a poem I wrote in February of 2008 which was just recently published in the Autumn 2009 Issue of The Midwest Quarterly. I hope that it will speak to you on your own terms; but, for me, this poem represents an early phase in my discovery and initial investigations of secular humanism. Thanks for reading,

Matt




Lunar Eclipse
February 20, 2008


I like how you throw your cigarette to the grass
and leave me with the wooden rocking chair,

the wetness of you breath lingering
in the frozen air after you have shut the door.

I imagine you, going from room to room,
turning off lights, shutting the cabinets

I have left open. See how stones from the river
enter the eyes of our children? What beautiful

stupor sleep ushers. What will I give them?
The night is theirs, this shadow passing

over the moon makes everything around it
explode. I will not pray tonight. To pray

is to confess solitude. I am not alone.
To pray in gratitude is to confess coincidence,

to admit to luck or chance, but everything
here I have made, or helped in the making.

To pray in exaltation is to celebrate
that which is not your own. To pray in

petition is to beg. I will not pray tonight.
I beg for nothing. I have seen the light

between each star brighten as the red moon
goes dark, then bleeds, then goes dark again.