On the seventh of September, the earth
will impose itself between moon and sun
and the eclipsed moon will blush red,
color of love and rage. It’s the anniversary
of my long-ago birth. Of late I’m less
than sanguine about aging. Ghosted
by family and friends—deaths, drugs,
dementia, dogma—my circle has waned
to a thinner crescent. I’m not immune,
myself at summer’s end not yet red,
but no longer vibrant green; wan, faded.
Back in spring my sap loved to rise, roots
to branch-tips aspiring. Now I lay low.
Keep mum. Abide,
though our home-space tumbles
toward burn, wreck and ruin bought
with others’ blood. Words like “liberty”
mean something different. it’s almost
enough to shock one silent, numb one
to the beauties we still, for now,
number our blessings. Blood Moon
is said to augur transformation,
a flushing away to make room for change.
In this red tide, may we stay afloat, unmute,
sow songs of praise and rage, words vivid
as rubies. May our hues distill, deepen—
cerise to crimson, vermilion to claret,
cabernet, rufous, russet—articulate
full spectrum against falling.
Marjorie Tesser’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Whale Road Review, Cutleaf, SWWIM, The New Verse News, and others. She is the author of poetry chapbooks The Important Thing Is, (Firewheel Chapbook Award Winner), and The Magic Feather (FLP). Her poem “April” won the 2019 John B. Santoianni Award from the Academy of American Poets. She has co-edited three anthologies and is editor-in-chief of MER-Mom Egg Review.
