Ice Skating Under the Lunar Eclipse: Late Evening, February 20, 2008 by Greg Bryant

This one night, twelve or fifteen

of us are tracing and tracing

ovals and figure-eights,

our blades clicking and swishing and

shaving dust from the hard bright ice.

We lift our gaze on every eastward pass

to the soft brick-red moon,

strangely hooded in the bent rays

of our passing shadow.

We loop and spin, again and again

pass shadowed faces,

sharp wind-watery eyes,

sharing an intimate, innocent

secret this one night skating

under a ruddy dim moon.

One of us rounds the western curve

readying another orbit.

Wrapped in wool and feathers and fur

she lunges into the straightaway

drawn like a lone comet and hurtling

toward another of us waiting with one arm out to

clasp the passing hand and they spin with dangerous speed laughing

in muffled barks lost in the wide prairie

and fling each other away, plunge into separate darkness,

planning the next pass.

We watch them, feeling their love,

murmuring wonder at this

weird late-night gathering of bodies

loving the spinning star-pierced sky,

loving the still air and the hard chill,

loving the terra cotta cast of the round moon,

a freak reunion of frost, friends,

and planets momentarily aligned,

clusters of cosmic dust

circling and shining and sharing the shade,

attending the hiss of a curving blade,

Falling toward each other from distances

and swinging fiercely

in the tug of friendship

this one night.

~ Greg Bryant
Greg Bryant and his wife Susan live in Robinson, Kansas. Greg teaches English composition, literature, and creative writing at Highland Community College.

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