Well, we did look for it, but the great God who creates these wondrous spectacles that take place once every 2000 years, didn’t think to create a few gaps in the cloud so we could actually see it.
Tonight we stand in our millions
to watch the moon grow red,
and we give it poetic names
as if we cherish and revere it—
la lune rousse, the bloodmoon—
and we wonder at the colour,
then we wonder why we’re here,
as we struggle to remember
how the normal, whitish moon looks
on the nights of no eclipse,
when our eyes are fixed on headlights
and streetlights and phone screens,
and we give it little notice.
Then we slap a few mosquitoes
and sneak a peek at our messages
and we wonder, does it matter?
Jane Dougherty Writes 
Which is precisely what I did. Does it make me shallow, disinterested or too down to earth?
Great piece.
P.S. Did u see it?
It makes you the same as me, I suppose. Curious. I have just had a look at it. There’s a storm building up but there was a break in the cloud briefly about fifteen minutes ago when I took the dog out for a pee. It was there all right, and they weren’t lying. It is red. Sort of.
I can’t see anything even if I try. It’s overcast here. I trust u and your dog.
I can see that early people (and dogs) would probably have been scared shitless if they’d seen it on a cloudless night, but since the moon is often a very deep colour in the summer, they maybe wouldn’t have paid it much attention either on a night like last night.
True.
Many will 🌹
🙂
You describe it exactly Jane.
It’s still light here and cloudy. We have a thunderstorm warning, so I don’t think I’ll see anything, unless perhaps I can see it still when I wake up tomorrow. 🙂
I imagine what we saw here was a hazy version as it only lasted a short while—that little gap in the cloud—then the storm clouds moved over. As the girls said, even if we didn’t see the fabulous moon, we did get a tremendous sunset. It looked as though the whole skyline was on fire.
Oooo–that sounds beautiful! I saw some beautiful photos the BBC published of the red moon.
It was pretty spectacular, but I’m glad we got a glimpse of the red moon too.
We had no chance, massive thunderstorm………….. which was spectacular!
Our storm just rumbled in the background, but it certainly spoiled the fun.
Just done a post with links to the red moon in Sept 2015 (with pics). Not brilliant shots due to the camera, but you get the idea.
Haha! Hilarious, yet so true. Sometimes as poet, we tend to look at only extra-ordinary beauty. Blood moons but not moons, rain but not sun…
I think we’re all guilty of that. People are suckers for novelty and blind to the beauty before their eyes every day.
Said it right!
🙂