Something Poetic About the Moon

In the last year I’ve taken a renewed interest in the moon. It’s always been there, but I just seem to notice it more. This change undoubtedly has a lot to do with living in Kauai. There aren’t so many lights around and when it’s dark, it’s dark. Unless, of course the full moon is shinning like a spotlight as it was last night. I thought of someone running across the prison yard and getting caught in the bright light from the guard tower, only the moon would be more likely to help by lighting the prisoner’s way then to try to foil an escape.

It was about a year ago when I was on Kauai on vacation when I first re-noticed the moon. The moon over Hanalei Bay is something very special to see. In fact I think someone wrote a song about it, but when I returned home to California I found that the moon had not lessened its grip on me. All those city lights may drown some of the dimmer stars but they are no match for the moon. And so I gazed at the same moon that inspires songs in Hanalei and everywhere else and made the decision to move.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against the sun. We own everything to the sun. Without it there would be no life on Earth. The sun is all business; it comes up; it does its job and allows us to do ours and then goes down. It’s like a co-worker who always shows up on time and does their job well. We could still have life on earth if it weren’t for the moon. Tides would be much more moderate and poets would have less material to work with but we would get by. On the other hand some planets have many moons. Perhaps there’s an alien on a planet with seven moons writing a blog right now and wondering what life on a planet with only one moon would be like. Our moon is actually kind of boring compared with many heavenly bodies. It has no color and without any atmosphere it always looks the same. But there’s plenty of change here on earth. I like the moon the way it is.

Sometimes when I get home at night and get out of the car in my driveway I pause and watch the moon. There’s nothing to see that I haven’t seen before and if the moon and I could communicate I’m not sure what there would be to say but I watch anyway.