Today NASA deliberately crashed a rocket into the moon to search for water. My moon. Your moon. The poets’ moon. The ancients’ moon. Usually we howl at the moon. Today I feel like howling with the moon, for the moon. I don’t know if she’s hurt, obviously, but this feels like an intensely disrepectful (to say the very least) act of aggression against a body that has done nothing but give–she pulls our tides and lights our way and bathes us in her light.
In honor, one of the zillions of poems about the moon, from my homegirl Emily.
The Moon was but a Chin of Gold by Emily Dickinson
A Night or two ago —
And now she turns Her perfect Face
Upon the World below —
Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde —
Her Cheek — a Beryl hewn —
Her Eye unto the Summer Dew
The likest I have known —
Her Lips of Amber never part —
But what must be the smile
Upon Her Friend she could confer
Were such Her Silver Will —
And what a privilege to be
But the remotest Star —
For Certainty She take Her Way
Beside Your Palace Door —
Her Bonnet is the Firmament —
The Universe — Her Shoe —
The Stars — the Trinkets at Her Belt —
Her Dimities — of Blue —
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