THE MOON
There is such loneliness in that gold.
The moon of the nights is not the moon
Whom the first Adam saw. The long centuries
Of human vigil have filled her
With ancient lament. Look at her. She is your mirror.
-Jorge Luis Borges
Translated by Willis Barnstone
FULL MOON
One night as Dick lay half asleep,
Into his drowsy eyes
A great still light began to creep
From out the silent skies.
It was the lovely moon’s, for when
He raised his dreamy head,
Her surge of silver filled the pane
And streamed across his bed.
So, for a while, each gazed at each —
Dick and the solemn moon —
Till, climbing slowly on her way,
She vanished, and was gone.
-Walter de la Mare
GETTING UP EARLY
Just as the night was fading
Into the dusk of morning
When the air was cool as water
When the town was quiet
And I could hear the sea
I caught sight of the moon
No higher than the rooftops
Our neighbor the moon
An hour before the sunrise
She glowed with her own sunrise
Gold in the grey of morning
World without town or forest
Without wars or sorrows
She paused between two trees
And it was as if in secret
Not wanting to be seen
She chose to visit us
So early in the morning.
-Anne Porter
The first full moon in November is traditionally called the Beaver Moon in North America, and marks the season when we might be busy as beavers getting everything shored up against winter.
Lately I’ve been refreshing my memory of the hymn that I memorized soon after my husband’s passing, a version of St. Patrick’s Breastplate from Charles Villiers Stanford. He used two old Irish tunes to compose a majestic setting for Cecil Frances Alexander’s poetry. The YouTube version I learned from is still up: “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.”
On the occasion of the full moon I am sharing only the portion of the hymn that draws our spiritual eyes to the natural world.
I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven,
the glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even;
the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea,
among the old eternal rocks.
Another version of this ancient hymn is “The Deer’s Cry,” and my favorite rendition of that one is sung by Lisa Kelly here: “The Deer’s Cry.”
What could I add to this prayer? The blessing is in the singing of it.
Gladsome Lights 