Saturday, November 27, 2021

half empty moon

The half moon rises at midnight with me

An obvious timing for it to happen now that I see it

Illuminated from below by the unseen sun

Bisected straight across parallel to the horizon


The moon is a bowl colored orange floating up

Through the yellow ochre into a bright silver

Casting a sheen of light on the ocean

Seen two hours later when I get up again


The moon now half empty lags behind the sun

Falling back more than an hour every day

Rising later and more shrunken with each pass

Until the sun overtakes it a week from now


Here at the beach the darkness at night

Reveals more stars as our eyes adapt

But the ever present shrimp trawlers close offshore

Shine their bright lights of human presence


The anthropocene image of the moonrise 

With a fishing boat beacon adjacent to it

Not far from where the moonshot rockets lift off

Keeps me grounded in the state of the world


If I were a younger person in a deep sleep

Missing out on these nocturnal observations

My life would likely be busy in a way it is not

One of the benefits of my advancing age