The Moon

I have been fortunate in my new life as a poet. I have met many artists from many different types of art. The other day I met a man, a poet. He is as enthralled with the moon as I am.

As long as humans have existed, we have had a fascination with the moon. The moon has had a profound effect on humankind in many areas, including calendars, days of the week, religion, art, literature, music, science, mythology. In urban lore, it can make a person turn into a werewolf. The moon can make a person go insane-hence the term “lunatic”. Our name for the first day of the week is taken from the moon.

Prehistoric humans made carvings about the moon. Stonehenge and other lunar temples were created 5,000 years before Christ. People tracked the phases of the moon for information about growing and harvesting crops. The waves in the ocean are under the spell of the moon.

There is something that draws us to the moon. It is an inexplicable phenomenon. The moon has been the subject of many poems, operas, works of art, religions. There is an intangible link between us and the moon. It has existed since the world was created.

My link to the moon began three years ago. I met and fell in love with a man who loves the moon. I am no longer in love with this man. But my love for the moon continues unabated. I even call myself "The Poet of the Moon".

Many see different things when gazing at the moon. Some see the rabbit in the moon. Some see the man in the moon. Some see the moon as a god. Others as a goddess. I’ve heard that, when a mime looks at the moon, they see a face like theirs, also in white.

When you look at the moon, what happens to you? What do you think of? What do you see? For me, I see a source of inspiration. I see comfort. I see loved ones in heaven. I see compassion. I see a companion. I see a generous, faithful muse that inspires me in my writing.

We are all under the spell of the moon. We are all under its enchantment. It is our constant friend and guardian. Our protector. Our inspiration. Our constant companion in the universe. The moon is always there for us. We are never alone.

“Her antiquity in preceding and surviving succeeding tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible.”― James Joyce, “Ulysses”

© Esperanza Habla All Rights Reserved

 "Moon Goddess" by Josephine Wall