#SOL17: Out of Darkness

Winter Solstice (M.A. Reilly, 12.21.10, 3:05 a.m._

The Coming of Light 

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.

                - Mark Strand 

                

I. 

I had planned to stay up to shoot the lunar eclipse. What I did not know was that my husband had planned to join me. I thought he had gone off to bed. He had not and as we stood outside at 2:30 a.m. in the freezing cold of late December--we each felt so very much alive.  

This is mostly how we lived.


II.

Closer to 3 a.m. we agreed that Devon, who at the time was ten-years-old, should see the eclipse too, witness the Blood Moon. A total lunar eclipse on the Winter solstice. I waited outside with the tripod and my camera as the darkness continued to gather. Rob went inside to rouse Devon. A few minutes later they both came outside bundled up. Devon drowsy and leaning his slight body into his father's.

We stood there in wonder. None of us talking as the moon turned red.


III.

The next day, I showed both of them the image I made from that night. 

What caused it to be red? Devon asked. 

And Rob, equally as comfortable as scientist as he was poet, launched into an explanation about the Earth's atmosphere and scattered light.


IV.

In the year following Rob's death, what I have mostly learned, 
          mostly remembered 
          from living with this man, 
                      making a family with him 
     
         is that it is 
         so often 
         about the coming of light. 


V. 

We created love together out of darkness.