Broch

Broch: luminous ring around the moon.

Backstory: I remember being a small girl and staring at the slightly illuminated dark part of an incomplete moon. I was fascinated, didn’t understand how it could be. It's still my favorite part of pedestrian moon-sighting, if visible.

I have many thoughts about the moon. I think the luminous glow, however, is not the one associated with eclipses, but the more common glow that comes with a thicker air, like fog. This, too, is captivating, especially in the fall heading toward Halloween, but even after, toward winter. A kind of eerie mood is set, and one can feel the draw of the celestial body, like the ocean tides.

A broch is a ring around the entire moon, whether it be a full moon or not (as I understand the term). I also learned that a “broch” is a ruin of a circular stone tower—namely with both an inner and outer wall— found in northern Scotland. The word is a Scots word, and connected to “brooch.” I feel like the extra “o” in the latter is a signifier of a brooch being a fancier stone-creation. How does it connect to a luminous ring around a celestial body? My thinking is that the tower’s outer wall is like the moon’s ring, especially if one imagines being at a bird’s eye view.

Now there’s a poetic image.

My Poem

Broch

Glow in a far off desert

the stars of a biting heat, bitter

to the world.

I see rings,

rings on severed fingers, off

in sanded blood;

rings of fire

etched like warpaint

on the inside part of unwatching eyes,

Rings and shockwaves, heat, heat, heat.

Of the bereft, I hear rings

of cries, of terror, of screams,

And do I need a gift of prophecy

to tell it like this, here

when this first chapter has yet to conclude?

Perhaps.

Yet some might call it history.

And if I need fear to care,

simply take me out at night

and wrap me up

lift my watching eyes

to twinkling blue-red stars, like flags

of my now fallen country,

and show me the moon.

That halo,

an ever-clearing irony.

A/N: I wrote this for Penny Fuller's A-Z Challenge, Part B. I'm sure I missed the deadline by that much. But here's the link if anyone wants to join in the next letter!