Category: moon

All Her Lambent Beauty

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And who has seen the moon, who has not seen
Her rise from out the chamber of the deep,
Flushed and grand and naked, as from the chamber
Of finished bridegroom, seen her rise and throw
Confession of delight upon the wave,
Littering the waves with her own superscription
Of bliss, till all her lambent beauty shakes towards us
Spread out and known at last, and we are sure
That beauty is a thing beyond the grave,
That perfect, bright experience never falls
To nothingness, and time will dim the moon
Sooner than our full consummation here
In this odd life will tarnish or pass away.
~D.H. Lawrence “Moonrise”

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A seventy-year supermoon reassured me this morning, before it settled, vanishing into a bed of low clouds.

~a beacon does shine in the dark, luminous~

I could not sleep last night, tossing in turmoil at how inadequate I feel to the juggling task I face daily.  I fear dropping even one ball amid dozens that must stay in the air.

Yet this lambent ball, this holy sphere of the night, remains aloft, floating, to rise again and again to light our darkness. No dropped ball here nor will there ever be.

It isn’t just up to me.  I must remember.

 

~a thank you to Lindsey for her gift of this beautiful word, and how it lit up my day

januarymoon

Things That Are Not Now

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Then we shall be where we would be,
Then we shall be what we should be,
Things that are not now, nor could be,
Soon shall be our own.
~Thomas Kelly from his hymn “Praise the Savior, Ye Who Know Him”

____________

Because I finished my term on earth
and had no knowledge of either
fear nor care, no morning knowledge,
no knowledge of evening,
and those who came before
and those following after
had no more knowledge of me
than I had of them.
~Mary Ruefle from “Marked”

_____________

Whether we are coming or going,
beginning or ending,
leading or following,
rising or setting,
north or south,
east or west,
one day we shall be
where or what we should be,
even if not now
even if not now
even if not now~
we soon shall be.

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December Moon

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a full moon in Ireland

Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
where the wild creatures ranged
while the moon rose and shone.

why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we’ll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.
–  May Sarton, December Moon

 

Near midnight, a 4.8 earthquake centered off Vancouver Island occurred only 30 miles from us.
Friends a few miles away were jolted awake in their beds yet I was still up and felt nothing whatsoever.
Like nocturnal secrets that happen routinely outside our windows without our awareness,
we miss amazing things if we’re not paying attention.

We sleep our lives away
or we can stay tuned.

Why did the dogs bark in the night?
Could be a cat or raccoon walked by,
or an intruder,
or the moon was just so compelling
there was no other rational response.

ice321414

 

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

A December Tenderness

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From the tawny light
from the rainy nights
from the imagination finding
itself and more than itself
alone and more than alone
at the bottom of the well where the moon lives,
can you pull me
into December? a lowland
of space, perception of space
towering of shadows of clouds blown upon
clouds over
                  new ground, new made
under heavy December footsteps? the only
way to live?
The flawed moon
acts on the truth, and makes
an autumn of tentative
silences.
You lived, but somewhere else,
your presence touched others, ring upon ring,
and changed. Did you think
I would not change?
                              The black moon
turns away, its work done. A tenderness,
unspoken autumn.
We are faithful
only to the imagination. What the
imagination
             seizes
as beauty must be truth. What holds you
to what you see of me is
that grasp alone.
~Denise Levertov “Everything that acts is actual”
Within these days of early winter
is disappearance of the familiar world,
of all that grows and thrives,
of color and freshness,
of hope in survival.
Then there comes a moment of softness amid the bleak,
a gift of grace and beauty,
a glance of sunlight on a snowy hillside,
a covering of low cloud puffs in the valley,
a moon lit landscape,
and I know the known world is still within my grasp
because you have hold of me.
~EPG
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Grief Illuminated

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A waning November moon reluctantly rose,
dimming from the full globe of the night before.
I drive a darkening country road, white lines sweeping past,
aware of advancing frost in the evening haze,
anxious to return home to familiar warmth and light.

Nearing a county road corner, slowing to a stop,
I glanced aside where
a lonely rural cemetery sits expectant.
Through open iron gates and tenebrous headstones,
there in the middle path, incongruous,
car’s headlights beamed bright.
I puzzled, thinking:
lovers or vandals would seek inky cover of night.
Instead, these lights focused on one soul alone,
kneeling graveside,
a hand resting heavily on a stone, head bowed in prayer.
This stark moment of solitary sorrow,
a visible grieving of a heart
illuminated by twin beams.

This benediction of mourning
as light pierced the blackness;
gentle fingertips traced
the engraved letters of a beloved name.
Feeling touched
as uneasy witness, I pull away
to drive deeper into the night,
struggling to see despite
my eyes’ thickening mist.

a full moon in Ireland

fullmoon

 

Angel of Grief--Stanford University

Angel of Grief, Stanford University Mausoleum

The Boreal Fruit

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underherwings
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The moon now rises to her absolute rule,
And the husbandman and hunter
Acknowledge her for their mistress.
Asters and golden reign in the fields
And the life everlasting withers not.
The fields are reaped and shorn of their pride
But an inward verdure still crowns them;
The thistle scatters its down on the pool
And yellow leaves clothe the river—
And nought disturbs the serious life of men.
But behind the sheaves and under the sod
There lurks a ripe fruit which the reapers have not gathered,
The true harvest of the year—the boreal fruit
Which it bears forever,
With fondness annually watering and maturing it.
But man never severs the stalk
Which bears this palatable fruit.
~Henry David Thoreau
So many eyes turned skyward last night
to witness the shadowing of the moon,
its large unblinking eye turned bloodshot.
The wonder is that we are mere witness
to something beyond our reach,
trying our best to harvest, record and keep it.
This morning the moon sets,
bright and cheerful,
as it always does,
and we go about our daily lives
oblivious that it will continue to do so
long after we ourselves are harvested.
thistledown915
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Holding the Fall

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NASA photo of total lunar eclipse
NASA photo of total lunar eclipse

The leaves are falling, falling as from far,
like distant gardens withered in the heavens;
They fall with slow and lingering descent.

And in the night the heavy Earth, too, falls
from out the stars into the Solitude.

Thus all doth fall.  This hand of mine must fall
And lo! the other one — it is the law.
But there is One who holds this falling
Infinitely softly in His hands.
~Rainer Maria Rilke  “Autumn”

 

We got up at 3 AM to witness the total lunar eclipse,
to wonder at the simplicity of shadow and movement
on a scale too grand to fathom, the syzygy of connection of sun, earth, moon.

The moon was overshadowed, as if fallen from grace.
But the One who holds this falling, softly lifted it back in place.

I don’t know how ancient man reacted to something so radical
as a fading-to-blood-red moon,
but this modern woman was gob-smacked,
grateful for the miracle of moonshine.
~Emily

 

NASA photo
NASA photo

 

In the Way

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photo by Harry Rodenberger
photo by Harry Rodenberger

Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to.
You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see
and my self is the earth’s shadow
that keeps me from seeing all the moon.
The crescent is very beautiful
and perhaps that is all one like I am should or could see;
but what I am afraid of, dear God,
is that my self shadow will grow so large
that it blocks the whole moon,
and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing.

I do not know You God
because I am in the way.
Please help me to push myself aside.
~Flannery O’Connor

moontree

Putting It Off

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Sitting in windows at night
black cats and their masters
look out on summer; the moon
feeds their yellow visions,
the opened windows cool them…

…One wants nothing to happen
forever, and thinks of those
who perhaps are ready to die,
except that it is summer
and they are putting it off.
~Robley Wilson from “In Summer, Nothing Happens”

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photo of supermoon by Harry Rodenberger
photo of supermoon by Harry Rodenberger

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