The Lesser Light

The Lesser Light

The moon inspires us all, but with varied and inconstant emotions. The particular phenomenon of earthshine, which causes us to see an old moon held in the arms of a bright new moon, was an ill omen to the anonymous 16th-century author of the "Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens," who wrote "Late late yestreen I saw the new moone,/ Wi the auld moone in her arme,/ And I feir, I feir, my deir master,/ That we will cum to harme." Coleridge picked up those lines in early April 1802 for "Dejection: An Ode" but changed the image to include not only dejection, but tranquility and even love. We, too, can look at the odd way that the double reflection of sunlight decorates our night and reflect on how many indirections have brought us into the dark and into a new way of looking at the light.

Old days when we had no bright

Moonrise by Ansel Adams

In the West and in all Truth --

The honest way his shots made

New what we already knew:

Moon's passion meets us with night

Arms. It holds us tight and soothes

Old wounds. I'm new to you yet,

Moonset's far ahead of us.

In time, we'll have to confess;

The night says: Time to forget;

New sins will wait for regret.

Moon's beam lights us smuggling

Arms across love's border. Sing

Old numbers about loss: I've

Mooned over you long enough.

In this white light, let me give

The crush we share a new face:

New love snuggles for her place.

Moon's balm will not smooth our rough

Arms, our lips, or replace

Old scars with white milky tones.

Moon cuts and puts other ones

In the mix. We're in a fix.

The old is never quite gone.

New love requires some new tricks.

Moon's light gives us its two strong

Arms to make our shadow one.

Old songs warn us away, but

Moon says: Come on, jump in. But

In what? Memory's robot,

The force drives us, isn't about

New people, new ideas, but

Moon's promise, Moon's groan, Moon's

Arms, Moon's kiss, Moon's mean moan, Moon's

Old hard grudge against the sun.

Moon-versus-sun's oversung

In verse; it's stale and then some.

The challenge is to make some

New lyrics. Go back to the

Moon's first birth; flowing from the

Arms of God like blood from the

Arms of Christ: love beneath the

Moon's cold surface belies the

New words we've put in its mouth,

The old words keep seeping out.

In every work of love,

Moon still works its golden charms:

Old moon in the new moon's arms.