Alan Olee Book Report

After Reading St. John the Divine

Moon’s glow by seven fold multiplied, turned red,
Burned fierce by the coronal limbs at last
Out-leaping insulating space, a-blast
The searing heat sheeting round earth ahead
Of the scorched geoid’s course; and I a-bed
Watching the increased flame and holding fast
To purse and pillow. Worse! No shadow cast
By chair or cat. All people waking dead…

Earth lurches spacial waste; my room is hot;
That moon waxes her monstrous, brimstone disk;
Thick fear stretches before the febrile light;
Green fires pierce at my clenching eye’s blind spot…
My buried soul, rising to face the risk,
With one pure deed restores the natural night.

Gene Derwood, American poet, 1909 – 1954

The recent lunar eclipse made me think of this fine and very dramatic poem by Gene Derwood.