Not twice this day.
Inch time foot gem.
This day will not come again.
Each minute is worth a priceless gem.
-- Koan
Stepping outside after the fall of near dark. Rose and gold leaves shrugged off the beech and the Japanese maple glimmer on the damp pebbled walk in the soft light from the porch. I turn west along the sidewalk towards the corner and glide into the brief shadows of the cedars. Beyond their edges as I glance up. There, behind the nimbus of mist haloed around the streetlight, the new moon rises tilted like some open supplicating palm against the darkening last faint line of day far away.
Above the arc of the new moon I see, faintly, the orb of the Earth’s shadow dark against dark. I’m out on a very small errand for a quart of milk at the corner store. Only a few seconds, a few steps, in the night when going either to or from. And yet here I am, he we all are, for one more day of the Earth turning before the sun, for one more cycle of the moon turning around the Earth, in and out of the shadow obscuring and then revealing and the again obscuring its face, one of twelve that adds up to one more cycle of the Earth around its single star.
You say you don’t believe in grace, in miracles? Walk with me to the store in the glow from the night lights. Open your eyes. Open all your eyes. Look outside -- look beyond -- yourself. Behold.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at November 30, 2011 5:06 PM
Amen.
Posted by: Julie at November 30, 2011 7:46 PMBeautiful.
Posted by: Leslie at November 30, 2011 8:45 PMI've been noticing lately so many people walking around, nose to palm, checking their iPhone. Missing so much life.
Posted by: The Count at November 30, 2011 10:23 PMOne of the benefits I treasure, Gerard, from being a worker on the 'graveyard' shift, is the fact, that when I step out of my house to go to work, a beautiful night sky always greets me. And since I live away from the larger city, on the edge of a small town, An extraordinary sky greets me. Some nights cause me to pause and take in all the wonder before I continue on my way to work.
Posted by: Jewel at December 1, 2011 2:54 AMGerard
This post resonates with something that happened as I walked to my home in West London from work on my birthday some 15 years or so ago and was confronted with a celestial scenario that caused me to reach for my pen and record a brief event in the Great Scheme of Things, before the moment dimmed and familial festivity enveloped me:
Moonlight and Mars in March.
A sliver of luminous lunar light
Sailing low in the south-west sky,
It’s earth-shadow canvas a murky white:
The stars stand still as it passes by.
This slender craft bore my soul to earth
But many news moons have waxed and waned
Since that cool March night of a star-crossed birth
When Diviana fulfilled what was preordained.
A north wind freshens the atmosphere;
The huntress in flight is an awesome sight.
The firmament’s structure is crystal clear
As Mars glows red in the high south night;
Syrtis Major’s oxidic plain,
Viewed by Viking’s probing eye,
Disclosed a dusty, dead terrain;
But its gentle glow warms the earthly sky.
Gerard
This post resonated with something that happened as I walked to my home in West London from work on my birthday some 15 years or so ago and was confronted with a celestial scenario that caused me to reach for my pen and record a brief event in the Great Scheme of Things, before the moment dimmed and familial festivity enveloped me:
Marvellous Moonlight and Mars in March.
A sliver of luminous lunar light
Sailing low in the south-west sky,
It’s earth-shadow canvas a murky white:
The stars stand still as it passes by.
This slender craft bore my soul to earth
But many news moons have waxed and waned
Since that cool March night of a star-crossed birth
When Diviana fulfilled what was preordained.
A north wind freshens the atmosphere;
The huntress in flight is an awesome sight.
The firmament’s structure is crystal clear
As Mars glows red in the high south night;
Syrtis Major’s oxidic plain,
Viewed by Viking’s probing eye,
Disclosed a dusty, dead terrain;
But its gentle glow warms the earthly sky.
I worked a lot of graveyard shifts too. One night I discovered the old brick power plant building. Looking at it from farther out the pier, dim lights shining through the arched windows and reflecting in the water, the scene took on a beauty that quite transcended the industrial surroundings.
Posted by: pfsm at December 1, 2011 6:57 PMSorry about the double post - thought the first click hadn't worked. Very unusual for this blog, Gerard - most efficient software in the blogosphere as well as being the best blog for content and style. Wonderful bunch of regular punters, too.
Posted by: Frank P at December 5, 2011 5:18 PM
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