PROMPT #486 – THE SHADOW OF THE MOON

The second part of our exploration of the eclipse which happened recently concerns the MOON. The response to the SUN poems was very strong and we thank you for your diligence. But now, we stand in the shadow of the moon. Write a moon based verse.

WALT’S POEM:

BENEATH A BROAD, BRIGHT MOON

Night had fallen,
and any sullen mood I might have fostered
had found its rest in the evening sands.
The warmth of the day lingered
as wanton fingers traced along the
titillated flesh of that beautiful and willing
(although scared and nervous) woman
who had held my fascination
and seized my heart. We began that
tactile meander with shaking hands
as they wandered and we explored one another.
Tender caresses that unharnessed
our sleeping libidos. In the heated throes
of passion, it was an uncharted course.
Navigating by the stars above,
love came home in the shimmer
of a broad bright moon. It felt so right,
just like the first time, every night.
And my hands still quiver from that sight,
the beginning of passion in the bright moonlight.

© Walter J. Wojtanik – 2024

MARIE’S POEM

Humanity, Eclipsed

A Syrian friend
flees the supper table with
her whole family

leaving home-cooked meal
to decay in silence, as  
bombs scream her story.

While bombs shake her house
in Ukraine, a sweet young child
runs out the front door,

glares at a gutless
foe, shakes her fist, and bellows,
“You cannot scare me!”

A gentle woman
from Afghanistan stumbles
as she tries to bolt

away from the bombs
in her path. She breaks her nose.
But her lungs still breathe.

More friends from Ukraine
had no light, no heat for months.
This, in my friend’s words:
 
“Life is divided
into before and after
war came to our house.”

In shadows, evil
slinks across the globe beneath
our sentinel moon.

© Marie Elena Good, 2024

These are just a few of the stories of war-weary refugee friends of mine. These few don’t express but an infinitesimal spec of the havoc war wreaked on our planet in the time it took me to pen this poem. What we humans are willing to do to fellow humans is unspeakably horrific.