Fly me to the moon

I went with Jerry to the VA yesterday, he asked about my book as we walked in, “You’re not bringing one of those books that will make people uncomfortable, are you?” I laughed, no it’s a memoir of an artist (a dissident artist, but innocuous all the same). But then we saw the man with the Fuck Biden mask and I took my sweater off happy I’d worn my Obama Hope t-shirt. Weird little things. Just this week a town in Missouri was named the population center of America. (“The calculation of a population center, released every 10 years after the decennial census is taken, identifies the average point where Americans live. If every person in the United States weighed exactly the same amount, the population center would be the point at which a flat, rigid map of the country would balance.” from The Hill) What’s interesting to me is that the sign welcoming you to the town has the flag of the United States and the Confederate Battle Flag (good old Missouri Compromise); the town was nearly destroyed in a Civil War battle in 1863; what was learned?

Speaking of things that live in shadow, there’s a lunar eclipse coming up this week. I was trying to remember when I last saw a good eclipse and it had to have been in Klamath Falls. A lovely full red moon, nice star shine to witness. I’m hoping our forecast holds and we’ll have clear skies, I always like to see some of the moon notched away. Here’s a poem I wrote about my last eclipse.

What umbra brought

In the moment of second night
when shadow finally swallows moon
the sky turns to myth, to time
before fire or name or death.

What umbra brought: fevered
chants, every voice quivered
as the sky boiled scarlet.

We still fall to the same superstition,
drop prostrate to darkness,
make bargains and promises
to the light. Never mind the science
that has mapped the brain,
the heavens, the heart. Night
is long and cold, full of unseen
creatures who thrive in gloom.

What gift is reason to dumb animals?

                                           Anti eclipse fireworks, Mons Belgium