A “super
moon”. This is how yahoo news has described the night previous. This is the age
we live in. An age of blurbs. Sound bites. An age when people check their
mobile devices once every 15 seconds. There is no time for more. Attention spans
are short. Viral sensations come and go, flitting across cyberspace in nano
seconds. And so, the spectacle of September 27th, 2015, is reduced
to “Super Moon”. Pictures are available. No need to leave your device behind,
to venture out of doors. Mobile networks are only too happy to bring the show
to you. And let you move on in another 15 seconds to whatever else may catch
your eye.
It is
an age without wonder. Soullessness abounds. The extra ordinary becomes merely “super”
and wonder slips away. Not for us all, this loss of the world, this
magnificence. A walk into the darkness, at the verge of the woodlands. Night sounds
all about. The chirrup of crickets. The lone croak of a frog. The trilling of
toads. William Blake may well have called these night noises portents of
eternity too great for the understanding of Man. That is the wonder of this
night.
The
burnished copper of the moon, loud in harvest glory. But muted, shy. Her face
dimmed, veiled against the hungry stares below. Is she full of modesty? Perhaps
coy? What is in her face this night? That she would duck behind the world and
closet the brightest part of herself? The age of this shy moon weighs down on
the watchers. How easy it is to remember (if remember is the correct word) that
she has been here with us since there was an “us”. That she has danced her way
across the night’s horizons for untold eons. Great age becomes this lady. Not
maiden shy, then. Not coy and playful. No, those are games for the young. Demure,
modest in her power. Giving us the pull of her tides, the kiss of her light. Not
strumpet brazen in her gifts. A lady always; Diana, Artemis, she of the silver
light and keen eye. What mountains in her gaze, clarion calls at her lips? So
many have gazed up at her in delight. So many in despair. She rides out their
looks and prayers, beyond the ken of the wise
How can
this feeling, the wonder inside of Man, be captured in a 15 second info bite?
Nowhere is there room for poetry in the soul of today. No mention made of
laying out on a blanket, held close by a girl with eyes so blue you could
describe them as cold, icy, if it were not for the glowing warmth therein. Fingers
tracing the contours of your face, lacing your hair. Lulling you down into a
soft trance near to sleep, head pillowed on her thighs. Above, the hidden moon
deepens her shadows. Stars beyond the scope of the eye flit amongst clouds full
of threat and silent yells. Yawps you cannot hear with your ears, but can sense
at the periphery of the sky. The night breeze has flower petals in it, and dew
and happy memories of sunshine. Eyes heavy fight to keep this ancient lady in
view, but she of the blue eyes kisses them closed. Let her. This night will not
come again.
It is not a super moon. It is wonder and poetry, a moon
of hidden intentions, happiness in the darkness, yawping clouds full of mountains. And blue eyes.
