A Fading Sky

Supermoon, Julio Cortez, 2013, AP

A Fading Sky

©2013 Susan Noyes Anderson

They came: the tired, the poor, the yearning masses,

the flood of people reaching for one moon––

sharing a dream that lived and died in snatches,

mercurial as air in a balloon––

inflating, rising, dipping, begging patches,

blown-up and bursting with sweet freedom's tune.

Their voices soared across the purpled mountains;

their footsteps turned and tilled the fertile plains.

They slaked their thirst in rivers, sipped from fountains,

sucked liberty into their seeping veins;

laid down new roots, too numerous to count them,

scattered upon the wind the seeds of change.

Our Lady greeted all, and still she stands,

holds torch aloft against a fading sky,

whispers to suitors born in distant lands

promises kept or broken on a sigh.

Hope is the light that flickers in her hands,

as fragile, strong, and free as you and I.

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