Tuesday, December 21, 2010

ONCE IN AN AMBER MOON (AND QUOTE TO GO WITH IT)

Did anyone else get up to watch the eclipse of the moon, occurring on the winter solstice for the first time since 1638(!) and not again until 2094?

My little guy and I did, and his mother came over from her place in the freezing night to watch it together, standing on our front lawn, replacing the neighbor from the apartment upstairs who had been out there a while, other neighbors from an apartment next door—above what used to be a restaurant/catering place that moved and has been vacant for a while—looking out their window (my apartment was on the wrong side of the house it's in).

Tired this morning but worth it, like an art show for millions, a performance piece for the centuries, this mottled disc of varying shades of Autumn colors I have no vocabulary for, with radiant edges displacing each other as the progress of the earth between the sun and moon riffed on what seemed in the moment the inspiration for all art and culture and probably religions, the natural beauty of the familiar made unique.

Made me think of several lines of poetry, but I settled on the succinctness of this quote from Jim Moore's poem "In Romania":

"...the least one can do is look up
and watch as beauty treads its usual path."

("usual" in universe time...)

5 comments:

Tim said...

My wife and I got up at 3 without saying much of anything. Bundled up then laid back down on lawn chairs in the back yard. Under blankets. We saw our neighbors and waved. No one said a word. Like we were sleep walking.

-K- said...

All of southern California missed it.

As I'm sure you know, we're being hit with a freaky-deaky ninety-six hour rainstorm with the real heavy stuff coming soon (*real* soon) and staying with us for another forty-eight.

Anonymous said...

yah...too rainy in LA..but a week ago we saw beautiful meteor showers for 2 hours....from our porch
suzanne

Lally said...

Suzanne, I'm really sorry I missed the meteor shower and that you and K missed the the amber moon. May the rain be over soon.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

I like what Ikkyu says:

"Pain and pleasure are equal in a clear heart: no mountain hides the moon."