Gretchen Bartels-Ray

Eclipse

for those facing dark times

Doubt, they say, tries your faith.
Depression devours it like
a lunar eclipse nibbling
away at a celestial wheel
of Cheddar or Swiss
until there’s nothing left.

I watch the moon wane until
it is consumed completely.
I work to trust the sun
still shines but have
no hunger left for sunlight.

There is only the waiting,
the prickling cold, and
the faint glimmer of
bloodied curiosity
wondering if it is, this time,
the end of the world.

Perhaps hope is my two hands
holding out the empty cheese plate,
waiting joyless in silent
anticipation of the day
that there will be both cheese

and appetite to eat it.
For joy, they say, is sunlight swift
and peace is more than lack.
Shalom will break the dark
dividing me from you, I trust.