#MIDDLEBURY
Wildfire Moon (Summer, L.A. 2016)
Carol Muske-Dukes
for Bill Handley
Pale ash falls from
the sky. On the lanai,
a child finger-paints
a big red sun, twin to
the one that burns
above: mirror on fire.
What does the sun see,
through pages of smoke?
Hills: gargoyles, winged.
The horizon brazen as
the great fool’s gold
jet landing on sparkler
wheels. She catches it:
the revolving star atop
a police cruiser, reflecting
in a flash, the blood moon
coming up at dusk. Printing
her name in what we call
stardust. No one can look
for long into a burning
mirror: faces break up into
bloodshards. Still her small
fingers work ash into a
pink soul-lit version of
a planet unlike ours, its
moon withdrawing into
lit craters. Witness how
she rises, even in this sullen
white downfall, watching over
the indelible realms of touch.
No one else will ever render it so,
a world on fire burning within this
world that her fingers summon tonight,
arriving wildbright and never again.
About this poem
“We have had terrible wildfires in late summer here in Southern California. The last one filled the sky with smoke and white ash that fell everywhere and also generated a ‘blood moon,’ a strange red orb that rose at dusk in the altered heavens. My friend Bill Handley and I had been to a gallery opening featuring some wonderful paintings that appeared childlike to me and connected to Bill’s earlier photographing of the blood moon, and it all came together in this poem.” – Carol Muske-Dukes
About Carol Muske-Dukes
Carol Muske-Dukes is the author of “Blue Rose” (Penguin, forthcoming in 2017) and “Twin Cities” (Penguin, 2011). She teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Santa Monica, Calif.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Carol Muske-Dukes. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
