National Poetry Day TODAY!

Liz Brownlee ♦ October 1, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

It’s NPD, and I’m posting poems and poetry videos on the theme of Vision.

Here’s a poem with questions for the moon – her sky is very different from ours! No colourful sunsets or sunrises with no atmosphere, the sun will be off and then – on!  No clouds, and her dark side never sees the Earth as she keeps one side forever towards us. When we see a full moon, the moon sees a sliver of us, and the other way around.

A version of this poem is in Moonstruck! Poems About Our Moon, edited by Roger Stevens and illustrated by Ed Boxall.

Questions for the Moon

Does the silent moon sleep soundly

when her two week day is done

and dark falls with no colours

to switch off her spotlight sun

or does she gaze up at the Earth

as it waxes and it wanes

full Earth to crescent Earth

to disappear and come again?

The sleeping moon is woken

at end of lunar night

when her white sun rises suddenly

in a bright and cloudless white –

does she wonder as she gazes

in a moony kind of way

at the earthlight and its patterns

changing through the night and day?

Liz Brownlee

Image © Reema Mantri