November 29, 2012

There was a very large white moon last night, fingering everything with the silver of its light.  I am amazed at how much light the full moon can shine down.  This morning the normal vivid blue was washed out under its influence.  Sometimes it shines in the window until I think its morning when I wake up during the night, until I look at the clock.  Because there were no clouds last night, it reigned in the sky like the queen of heaven it is. 

This morning when I was looking for a poem, one of the first ones I came across was one about the moon, and it was one I had not read before.  Here is an excerpt from it, as it is a pretty long poem, and this is the verse about moonlight.

from Blue Dark   

the moon might rise and it might not

and if it brings a ghost light we will read beneath it

and if it returns to earth

we will listen for its phrases

and if I'm alone at the bedside table

I will have a ghost book to refer to

and when I lie back I'll see its imprint

beneath my blood-red lids:

not lettered ink

but the clean page

not sugar

but the empty bowl

not flowers

but the dirt

Deborah Landau

I am sure you could have read by the moon last night but I did not try it.   The moon holds light the same way a mirror holds your reflection, borrowing from the source and sending it back into the world reversed and paler.   I suppose the moon does not reverse the light but it does seem a different quality, something more . . . tenuous, bluer and thinner, more fragile.  Yet, the moon can hide the light of stars that burn brightly with their own light but not bright enough to be visible near the full moon.   While sunlight sustains us, we often think of it as ordinary and the frail light of the moon . . . magic.  Perhaps it is the inconstancy of it, not appearing the same every night, moving through the heavens like a coy maiden only showing what she wants to be seen.  The ghost book of the moon can only be read by the light of imagination, like the blank page filled with our own story, the bowl waiting to be filled with sweetness,  the dirt ready to release hidden life, the flowers growing in the dark waiting to rise into the light, both the magic of moonlight, and the warmth of the ordinary sun that feeds them.

I love poems that show so much with so few words.  Have the ordinary light of the sun today, bringing warmth and cheer, and tonight maybe the magic of the moon showing its sometime hidden face.