The few minutes of a Spring night are worth ten thousand pieces of gold.
The perfume of the flowers is so pure.
The shadows of the moon are so black.
— Su Dongpo, (1037-1101) from “Spring Night” in “One Hundred Poems from the Chinese.” Trans. Kenneth Rexroth.
Notes:
At night I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine.
Breathe into me.
— Rumi, excerpt of Some Kiss We Want (tr. by Coleman Barks)
Photo: DK @ Rowayton Beach, Norwalk, CT. 7:30 to 7:45 PM. 43° F. Saturday Feb 27, 2020
— Mary Oliver, from “Consequences”, Dream Work
Notes:
“The moonlight through the windshield. No one talks.”
~ Jenny Offill, Weather: A Novel (Knopf, February 11, 2020)
Notes:
Life should carry more meaning than the facts would bear. Which facts were these: we occupied a tiny corner of the universe, minor planet orbiting a minor star, in an even tinier corner of cosmological time. Still we wanted all of it, the sun and the moon and the firmament that held them, to be about us. This want had been bred into humanity, selected by nature, so it must have served some purpose once, but it had long outlived its usefulness… What was needed now was to know.
— Christopher Beha, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts: A Novel (Tin House Books, May 5, 2020)
Notes:
Phoenix, AZ.
Visiting Brother.
Time: Now.
I was inspired by the full Moon over the Camelback Mountains the night before.
I was further inspired by a Moon quote from a Murakami book that I came across this morning.
So much inspiration is grist for a blog post. As the bio suggests, if it moves me, it goes up. No other criteria required. Full stop.
Tell my Brother that I’m going out to take some shots of the Moon with my Smartphone. How hard can it possibly be, right?
I step outside.
I walk a block looking in all directions.
Then I walk a second block. It was a cloudless day in Phoenix. How hard can it be? Pretty damn hard without the Moon.
I get in car. I drive 5 miles east. Why East? Because the Sun Rises in the East. So Moon must be East. Does this make any sense? It gets Dark, the Moon is there. Does it rise at all?
I could have Googled it before I left (“Does the Moon Rise? “What time does the Moon rise in Phoenix today?”)
But, WTH would I do that for?
In 50+ years, it has never dawned on me that the Moon wouldn’t be there waiting for me when it was dark on a cloudless night.
I drive back. Wow. Empty handed. Embarrassing and beyond.
“What took so long?”
“I couldn’t find the Moon?”
“You’ve got to be kidding?’
“No Moon.”
“OK Smart a**. Does the Moon rise or is it just there?”
He has no clue either. Same root, same stock. Makes sense.
He’s watching me write this Post. He’s staring, wondering: “You aren’t really going to tell the world that you don’t know Jack about the Moon are you?”
Apparently I’m going to do exactly that. Yep.
I’m connected to my own reality here.
“We’re both looking at the same moon, in the same world. We’re connected to reality by the same line. All I have to do is quietly draw it towards me.”
~ Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
Notes:
Notes:
Notes:
Don’t you wish they would stop,
all the thoughts swirling around in your head,
bees in a hive, dancers tapping their way across the stage.
I should rake the leaves in the carport, buy Christmas lights.
Was there really life on Mars? What will I cook for dinner?
I walk up the driveway, put out the garbage bins…
Does the car need oil, again? There’s a hole in the ozone
the size of Texas, and everything seems to be speeding up.
Come, let’s stand by the window and look out
at the light on the field. Let’s watch how
the clouds cover the sun, and almost nothing
stirs in the grass.
~ Danusha Lameris, from “Thinking” from The Moons of August
Notes:
“Blue Moon” Photo by Eric Kanigan (Son). Taken at Long Neck Point, Darien, CT on Saturday, May 18, 2019. Check out Eric’s new Photography blog @ kaniganphotography.com.
