Blue Moon Postlude

I am aware that I have countless posts on this blog about the moon. But what's one more eh? Especially since we have just experienced a blue moon last week.  That's right, a rare blue moon. It must be its bright pendulum that is still swaying my thoughts at the moment to all things lunar.   

The moon of course is a poet's most beloved muse. Muse and mentor. Metaphor-maker and talisman. A currency. A lightbulb of inspiration.  An occupational heart-ed object. A slice of sky on which all hopes and dreams get pinned, poetic preambulations plotted. The moon pulls the words in us like it does the tides: back and forth, to and fro, skimming and flooding the blank page of the mind. Our luminous patroness. 

The moon, as I've mentioned in other blogs (you can access them by clicking on the 'moon' label below this post') is something special to poets. We, supposedly, write by the light of the moon. This may not be true literally, but it holds metaphorically. Its luminescence is our light by which we 'see' things, its steady orbit of earth our mind in its forever watchful pose. 

If you are a poet, it's a surefire bet you've written one or two poems about the moon, if not a truckload. I know I have. The moon in all its manifestations: new moon, half moon, full moon, dark of the moon, harvest moon, pink moon, blue moon. And indeed, by the light of the moon - of which I mean at night, bathed in the glow of its unobtrusive light. 

The moon offers countless imaginings to poets: it can be a female deity (this is especially true for many female poets' poems - Carol Ann Duffy's 'Woman in the Moon' is a highlight as is Anne Sexton's 'Moon Song, Moon Woman'; Alice Oswald also has a few great feminine odes to the moon), a disco ball, a disembodied person, a source of romance, of mysticism, of inspiration, of myth vs reality, of ever-constant guardian or silent witness. There are poems in which the moon speaks or in which the poet addresses the moon like an old friend, a romantic overseer. I particularly love Carl Sandburg's 'Backyard' poem in this respect, it's so jubilant and full of the notion of romantic celebration/transformation.  And Billy Collins' 'The Man in the Moon' has such an endearing quality to it. It describes so nonchalantly the moon's ever-there presence in a poet's life, moving through extremes of emotion for that grand ending which also expresses the poet's own unbridled joy at the sight of the moon.

Poems in which the moon is mused upon from a scientific perspective (Archibald Mac Leish's 'Voyage to the Moon' was an imaginative inquisitve response to the 1969 landings; May Swenson  also does a great one on this topic, of which I've posted here before in a previous blog so won't again), a romantic enchantment, or most often a luminously inspired state, even, a lonely solitary one.  Loneliness and the moon are so often intertwined, the moon has come to stand as a symbol of the state, a talisman, a globed sigh hung in the night sky. But it also seems to represent beauty through solitude - a lonely, but beautiful presence. Sara Teasdale's short poem on this 'Morning Song' is gorgeous and offsets loneliness and sadness so beautifully with the idea of solitude, of independent freedom of mind and body, it is one of my favourites for sure. Or the last poem I've posted here, a concrete poem on the moon, pokes fun at all the descriptions heaped on the moon, but then ends on a simple, short almost whispered confession of one truth - the loneliness of the moon.

For some, the moon is light, proof of life beyond our earth, and to others it is the light of the mind, the illumination within when inspiration strikes. I adore Mark Strand's musing on it, 'Open the book of evening to the page/where the moon, always the moon appears...'  Or Kojiju's ode proposing that even to know that the moon exists is to be certain of light not only in night, but in the uncertainty of our universe, in the darkest mysteries of life and what lies beyond.

The moon as it appears in poetry can be magic, can be balm,  or just mystery. A constant companion or an aloof indifferent onlooker, sometimes an advocate for lunacy.  Always though, it is a charm, which exerts an undeniable and sometimes inexplicable power on the poet and the reader.  I cannot get enough of moon poetry - writing and reading it. I search out poems on the moon with something of an explorer's gleeful momentum. Every time I find a new one, it is like the moon has been rediscovered - it is new and gleaming once again. Moon poems shine with a light that comes from awed observance and perceptive finely-tuned poetic antennae.

It seems every poet has written at least one ode to it. Some seem truly smitten, the likes of: Carl Sandburg, Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, Mark Strand, Alice Oswald, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden.  I want to post a few of those poems here today, a few of my my favourites, poems that I have not already posted here.  I hope you will enjoy them and feel moved to suggest some of your favourite moon poems? 

Happy Blue Moon Musing, 

~Siobhán 

*Most of these poems are taken from this wonderful anthology: 

On the Spirit of the Heart as Moon-Disk - Kojiju

Merely to know
The Flawless Moon dwells pure
In the human heart
Is to find the Darkness of the night
Vanished under clearing skies.

The Man in the Moon - Billy Collins

He used to frighten me in the nights
of childhood,
the wide adult face, enormous, stern, aloft
I could not imagine such loneliness, such coldness
But tonight as I drive home over
these hilly roads
I see him sinking behind stands of winter trees
And rising again to show his familiar face
And when he comes into full view
over open fields
he looks like a young man who has fallen in love
with the dark earth
a pale bachelor, well-groomed and
full of melancholy
his round mouth open
as if he had just broken into song.

***


Moon - Mark Strand

Open the book of evening to the page
where the moon, always the moon appears
between two clouds, moving so slowly that hours
will seem to have passed before you reach the next page

where the moon, now brighter, lowers a path
to lead you away from what you have known

into those places where what you had wished for happens,
its lone syllable like a sentence poised

at the edge of sense, waiting for you to say its name
once more as you lift your eyes from the page

close the book, still feeling what it was like
to dwell in that light, that sudden paradise of sound.

***


 


Moon Compasses - Robert Frost

I stole forth dimly in the dripping pause
Between two downpours to see what there was.
And a masked moon had spread down compass rays
To a cone mountian in the midnight haze, 
As if the final estimate were hers;
And as it measured in her calipers, 
The mountain stood exalted in its place.
So love will take between the hands a face... 

***

The Well - Denise Levertov

At sixteen I believed the moonlight
could change me if it would.
          I moved my head
on the pillow, even moved my bed
as the moon slowly
crossed the open lattice.

I wanted beauty, a dangerous
gleam of steel, my body thinner,
my pale face paler.
          I moonbathed
diligently, as others sunbathe.
But the moon's unsmiling stare
kept me awake. Mornings,
I was flushed and cross.

It was on dark nights of deep sleep
that I dreamed the most, sunk in the well,
and woke rested, and if not beautiful,
filled with some other power. 
 

Moon Song, Woman Song - Anne Sexton

I am alive at night.
I am dead in the morning,
an old vessel who used up her oil,
bleak and pale boned.
No miracle. No dazzle.
I’m out of repair
but you are tall in your battle dress
and I must arrange for your journey.
I was always a virgin,
old and pitted.
Before the world was, I was.
I have been oranging and fat,
carrot colored, gaped at,
allowed my cracked o’s to drop on the sea
near Venice and Mombasa.
Over Maine I have rested.
I have fallen like a jet into the Pacific.
I have committed perjury over Japan.
I have dangled my pendulum,
my fat bag, gold, gold,
blinkedly light
over you all.
So if you must inquire, do so.
After all I am not artificial.
I looked long upon you,
love-bellied and empty,
flipping my endless display
for you, you my cold, cold
coverall man.
You need only request
and I will grant it.
It is virtually guaranteed
that you will walk into me like a barracks.
So come cruising, come cruising,
you of the blast off,
you of the bastion,
you of the scheme.
I will shut my fat eye down,
headquarters of an area,
house of a dream.




Voyage to the Moon - Archibald MacLeish 

Presence among us.                                      

                   Wanderer in our skies,

dazzle of silver in our leaves and on our
waters silver,
                      O
Silver evasion in our farthest thought –
“the visiting moon” . . . “the glimpses of the moon”...
and we have touched you!
                                           From the first of time,
before the first of time, before the
first men tasted time, we thought of you.
You were a wonder to us, unattainable,
a longing past the reach of longing,
a light beyond our light, our lives – perhaps
a meaning to us . . .
                                  Now
our hands have touched you in your depth of night.
Three days and three nights we journeyed,
steered by farthest stars, climbed outward,
crossed the invisible tide-rip where the floating dust
falls one way or the other in the void between,
followed that other down, encountered
cold, faced death – unfathomable emptiness . . .
Then, the fourth day evening, we descended,
made fast, set foot at dawn upon your beaches,
sifted between our fingers your cold sand.
We stand here in the dusk, the cold, the silence . . .
and here, as at the first of time, we lift our heads.
Over us, more beautiful than the moon, a
moon, a wonder to us, unattainable,
a longing past the reach of longing,
a light beyond our light, our lives – perhaps
a meaning to us . . .
                     O, a meaning!
over us on these silent beaches the bright
earth,

          presence among us.

***

Morning Song - Sara Teasdale

A diamond of a morning 

Waked me an hour too soon;

Dawn had taken in the stars 

And left the faint white moon. 

O white moon, you are lonely, 

It is the same with me,

But we have the world to roam over, 

Only the lonely are free. 

Backyard - Carl Sandburg

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month; to-night they are throwing you kisses.

An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a cherry tree in his back yard.

The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking white thoughts you rain down.
Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver changes.

 

'The Moon Speaks' - James Carter

 

How much it must bear on its back,
a great ball of blue shadow,
yet somehow it shines, keeps up
an appearance. For hours tonight,
I walk beneath it, learning.
I want to be better at carrying sorrow.
If my face is a mask, formed over
the shadows that fill me,
may I smile on the world like the moon.
- See more at: http://blog.sevenponds.com/the-next-chapter/dealing-with-grief#sthash.YYPw94l7.dpu

How much it must bear on its back,
a great ball of blue shadow,
yet somehow it shines, keeps up
an appearance. For hours tonight,
I walk beneath it, learning.
I want to be better at carrying sorrow.
If my face is a mask, formed over
the shadows that fill me,
may I smile on the world like the moon.
- See more at: http://blog.sevenponds.com/the-next-chapter/dealing-with-grief#sthash.YYPw94l7.dpuf

On The Harvest Moon

 

'The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum...' 

~ Ted Hughes, 'Harvest Moon'

The harvest moon is lighting up our skies tonight and a beautiful moon it is.  The 'harvest moon' of course the name given to September's full moon, the moon closest to the Autumn equinox and the moon closest to many a moonlover's heart. 

Why? Well because the harvest moon is more often than not the brightest, biggest moon of the year.  Not to mention the most golden in colour. The harvest moon is the moon that will stop you in your step to pronounce an emphatic WOW. 

Its metaphorical connotations also, are too heady to ignore. This is the moon that oversees the seasonal shift from summer to autumn, the golden goodbye to summer, the watching reaper of the harvest, the light of letting go. Neil Young's popular song 'Harvest Moon' captures these aspects all so well - the end of a love affair is acknowledged under a harvest moon's light - the regret, the lingering love, as well as the acceptance. Reap and sow, reap and sow - the eternal rhythm of the seasons is captured in this one moon.

Lots of writers have fallen under the spell of the harvest moon.  Thoreau captures the dual sense of the moon being one of letting go and looking forward here: 

'In a mild night when the harvest or hunter's moon shines unobstructedly, the houses in our village, whatever architect they may have had by day, acknowledge only a master. The village street is then as wild as the forest. New and old things are confounded. I know not whether I am sitting on the ruins of a wall, or on the material which is to compose a new one...' 

'New and old things are confounded.' The new and the old mix and mingle in a sense of magic of possibility and melancholy of past. The harvest moon is the one that rises at the exact same time as when the sun sets. This is what gives it its orange golden, even sometimes red colour. It embodies both an ending and a beginning. 

Longfellow also alludes to this sense of loss and gain in his poem 'Harvest Moon': 

Harvest Moon - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is the Harvest Moon!  On gilded vanes
  And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
  And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
  Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
  And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
  Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
  With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
  Of Nature have their image in the mind,
  As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,
  Only the empty nests are left behind,
  And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

Longfellow clearly acknowledges here that 'all things are symbols: the external shows/of Nature have their image in the mind.'  There is a sense of lament at things being 'gone' - the summer and the birds - but also, of things to come, 'the pipings of the quail.'  The tone of loss in the poem is offset by this last line, this curious buoyant sense of new things on the horizon. The harvest moon straddling two seasons, is a symbol, a motif, of the dichotomy of feelings this time of the year arises in us. It is the perfect moon to hang our hopes and regrets on, and as such, especially more meaningful in our consciousness. 

 

Ted Hughes captures the magnitude of the harvest moon brilliantly in his poem 'The Harvest Moon':

The Harvest Moon - Ted Hughes

The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.

So people can't sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!

And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.

Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry `We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills.

Descriptions of the harvest moon as a 'vast balloon' and 'a gold doubloon' are simple but absolutely precise. I'll never forget the first time I saw a harvest moon rising over the hills. It was as if another planet had sailed by. You know in Star Trek and the sci-fi like where you see many huge otherworldly moons in the sky? Well it was like that. Huge and gold and pulsing, or rather 'booming' would be the more appropriate word as Hughes has it here. I just love that line, all regal and declarative: 'The harvest moon has come, /booming softly through the heavens, like a bassoon. /And the earth replies all night like a deep drum.'  It just sums it up doesn't it? Our response to it is automatic, subconscious, ongoing and answering. 

The poem ends with a refrain of the wheat (this is a children's poem by Hughes, but no less for it) - 'We are ripe, reap us!' reminiscent of the whole idea of timing, of things happening in their own time, the natural cycle not just of the seasons but of our emotions too. 

The last poem I'll mention is Carl Sandburg's take on the harvest moon. It encapsulates the mystery and magic of the harvest moon like no other. It too has a sense of the seasonal change - in the midst of the summer roses the approaching red of autumn leaves is 'flagrant' and 'lurks in the dusk'. There is even a mention of death in the poem, 'the gray mocker' but it whispers, under the moonlight as a 'beautiful friend.' And the lovely last line is perhaps a definition of what specific kind of magic this moon has to offer:

'Under the Harvest Moon' -

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

 

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

'Love, with little hands, comes and touches you with a thousand memories, and asks you beautiful unanswerable questions...' Is that what the harvest moon means? Is that what the harvest moon does? Is it a catalyst for love, a motif of love? A medallion of memory? Are these questions beautiful because they are unanswerable? Or are they unanswerable because they are beautiful? And what exactly are these questions the moon arises in us?  

That depends I suppose. Each to their own. But I find myself agreeing with this sentiment. In my experience of the harvest moon, its ability to inspire contemplation on  life, love, time, our place in the universe, yes I think this is true. It's a reflective time of the year, and to reflect is to look back with love, is it not? By the benevolent light of the harvest moon, everything glows warm and gold. 

Well that's what I make of this poem, but to be honest, its mystery remains just that little bit impenetrable. But that's what I like about it. In fact, that's what I love about it. Its magic is resistant to interpretation, to analysis - just like the moon itself really. 

 

Moon Goddess ~ Josephine Wall 

This year's harvest moon is also extra special in that it is a Supermoon, the last of the year's three supermoon. A supermoon is a larger-than-normal-size moon, when the moon appears closer to the earth because of a number of reasons. (You can read about it here: What is a Supermoon?) And here are some amazing photographs of this year's harvest moon from around the globe: The Last Supermoon - The Guardian and Shine on Harvest Moon.

Happy harvest moon musing,

~ Siobhán

Harvest Moon Medley

 

Tonight of course, is the Harvest Moon. For anyone who hasn't heard of it, it's simply the name given to the moon nearest to the autumnal equinox (Sept 21) and like other the moons, takes its name from the activities of the natural world at this time, which would be the harvest. 

The harvest moon is the biggest of all the moons. This is due to the moon rising early and on the horizon at this time of year. It appears orange as we look at it through the earth's atmosphere, a gilded gold.  (for the science, you can read here) 

I'll never forget the first time I saw a harvest moon - absolutely huge! The size of Jupiter I'd reckon if it happened to float by us. Massive. Compared to other moons. And low down on the horizon, pure gold in colour. It was a stunning sight. 

A bit like this reaction:
"I was walking with a friend one hot August... As we rounded a corner we were both halted mid-stride by what lay before us. Looking out across the ocean we saw what appeared to be the lights of a great ship approaching, glowing orange across the water... As we watched, we realized our eyes had been playing tricks on us. What we were seeing was the rim of the harvest moon emerging from the sea, a monstrous, swollen apparition, its shape distorted by the atmospheric conditions; glowing and pulsing like an ember, craters and canyons were clearly visible on its surface like purple veins. 

We stood for a few minutes before hurrying back along the path to the house where we were staying and calling our friends outside to toast the moon as it wobbled up into the sky. Later that night I was woken by the mournful bellow of a foghorn. Going to the window I saw that the moon had changed colour from tangerine to silver and was casting a blade of light over the perfectly still sea, across which a solid wall of fog was advancing towards the shore. On this night at least, in this distant corner of our crowded, congested archipelago, the moon still reigned supreme." - from 'Nocturne: A Journey in Search of Moonlight' ~ by James Attlee

Or this poem from Carl Sandburg, that describes the magic of it, the mystery it seems to embody,

 
Under the Harvest Moon - Carl Sandburg

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions. 

Then there's Ted Hughes descriptive take on it that neatly sums it up, 'the flame-red moon,' 'like a gold doubloon' on the horizon, 'booming softly through heaven like a bassoon':
 

The Harvest Moon - Ted Hughes

The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,

Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.

So people can't sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!

And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.

Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry `We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills. 

Then, there's this lovely meditation on just what it is the moon can mean:

 

Moon in Virgo - James Lee Jobe

You are not beaten. The simple music rises up,  
children's voices in the air, sound floating out
across the land and on to the river beyond,
over the valley's floor. No, you cannot go back
for those things you lost, the parts of yourself
that were taken, often by force. Like an animal
in the forest you must weep it all away at once,
violently, and then simply live on. The music here
is Bach, Vivaldi; a chorale of children, a piano,
a violin. Together, they have a certain spirit
that is light, that lets in light, joyful, ecstatic.
"Forgive," said The Christ, and why not? Every day
that you still breathe has all the joy and murderous possibilities of your bravest dream.
Forgive. Breathe. Live. The moon has entered Virgo,
the wind shifts, blows up from the Delta, cools this valley,
and you are not beaten; the children sing, it is Bach,
and you are brave, alive, and human. 

And what it means in cosmic terms? Well, astrologer Jonathan Cainer outlines it clearly today: 

...We often feel a need, at Full Moon, to let out more of our true selves, to reject boundaries and barriers that normally keep us in check and to feel more aware of hidden magic. All Full Moons are powerful but when a Full Moon falls quite so close to the equinox, there's a strong celestial suggestion of 'recalibration'. Individually and collectively, we're growing aware of imbalances that may need rectifying and complications that could be simplified with surprising ease. (www.cainer.com) 

In other words - change, renewal, a reaping of what is done in our lives and a moving on to sow for future seasons, a simultaneous saying goodbye to the old ('No, you cannot go back/for those things you lost...') and welcoming the new. What's that feeling called I wonder? I'm sure it's something like this -  'Love, with little hands, /Comes and touches you /With a thousand memories, /And asks you /Beautiful, unanswerable questions.' 

But there's nothing that can sum up the feeling the Harvest Moon engenders than this famous song of the same title by Neil Young:

'Because I'm still in love with you I want to see you dance again 

on this Harvest Moon...'

There, I hope I've given you a glimpse into what the Harvest Moon means. To me personally, it will always be that evening in September, on the cusp of change, the yellow fields beneath, the blue sky above, and the huge  harvest moon, poised like a tossed golden coin on the horizon, a harbinger of all good things to come.

 

I hope, wherever you are, you get the chance to see this year's Harvest Moon and if not, at least feel it. 

Moon watching, 

~Siobhán 

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes
  And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
  And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
  Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
  And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
  Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
  With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
  Of Nature have their image in the mind,
  As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,
  Only the empty nests are left behind,
  And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20493#sthash.4PpT0dxH.dpuf