On Friday I saw the moon for the first time. I went outside to look because the news said it would be the fullest in fifteen years, but I guess I've been watching too much Doctor Who because when it rose over the horizon, I wanted to shout: "Hey moon! Can you hear me?" The next thing I thought was, "We should take a family vacation there someday."
The moon is not a feature of our landscape. It's not a decoration in a domed blue ceiling that contains us and composes our little sphere. It's a place. It's another landscape, on which it is possible for human feet to stand. To see the moon is to stand on the deck of a huge ship swinging smoothly through a dark sea and spot an island in the distance -- no, more than that. It's to sight a fellow airman, bound on his own course, and find oneself within hallooing distance. Somewhere in the clouds above the lookout will presently cry, "Ship ahoy!" Nothing but air and space separates us from the great white craft as we sail along. And the face -- the man in the moon, his eyes narrowed in what looks like pain, vainly pursuing the heedless sun all through the night. Those grieving eyes, that wry smile are craters, miles and miles across. Centuries of hopeless courtship have left him fairly bruised and battered, poor man, but he still twirls around us in his earnest game of hide-and-seek, too intent upon his goal to spare us much time of his own.
The sun rises brilliantly somewhere over central Asia. I know because an after-dinner stroll through the garden shows me the moon, stealing somebody else's sunlight and reflecting it dimly back to me, in southwest America. They make a moving pair, bright and cold, day and night, the two lamps that light the human race -- but nothing makes them a couple save our dim perception of them as two ornaments of our world. Ninety-three million miles away, the sun froths with yellow heat, roaring silently to itself. It is massive, appallingly huge, completely beyond our comprehension. The moon, hurtling around our perfectly balanced planet, at most a few hundred thousand miles away, is tiny in comparison. It is lifeless, barren, gray with dust. Dust that, perhaps, still bears the imprint of a human foot. And, of course, an American flag -- probably blown over by now. Here, we are protected by the warm and cozy blanket of atmosphere, but there, you might as well be standing in space, because the moon is naked.
These past few days I've been completely moonstruck. Every night I go outside and goggle at it, and it goggles back at me. My mom found a hobgoblin face in it which she prefers to the classic one, but I like the sad one that squints off into the distance, scanning the sky for the sun. One of the Old Testament prophets -- I think it was Joel -- said that the moon will be turned to blood before the Lord comes, and I've always wondered what that means. I've seen a lunar eclipse turn it rusty brown like dried blood, but wouldn't it be wonderful if that verse meant something completely different? That, perhaps, the moon will one day wake up and come to life? I rather like the image of the moon shaking off his pallor and feeling the blood start in his veins.
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