poem

 Red Moon

There is a reddish moon in the morning sky

Raw pink like sunburnt skin

Left too long to bake in the sun

Someone has sliced an orange in half

Exposing a fleshy citric succulence  

With a squirt that burns the eye.

The last flicker of flame before the lapse.

A crimson surge before the fade to white ash.

They say it’s due to wildfires

Raging thousands of miles away

Scattering all the western light.

Homes and and fields and forests seared 

Even the vineyards in the valleys are at risk

All those grapes swelling and hissing

Before they pop like millions 

Of tiny moons on the verge of bursting 

7/21/21