Day 870: Moon Story

What is it that makes the moon so magical? How is it that its presence can be illuminating, enabling, transforming? Why it is so associated with dreams and romance and wishing and most specifically, the fulfillment of these? How can it affect us so?

This poem by the late Mark Strand, captures the magical mystery of the moon charmingly. How it can lead us into 'those places where what you had wished for happens,' its 'lone syllable like a sentence poised at the edge of sense.'

 
Moon - Mark Strand

Open the book of evening to the page
where the moon, always the moon appears

between two clouds, moving so slowly that hours
will seem to have passed before you reach the next page

where the moon, now brighter, lowers a path
to lead you away from what you have known

into those places where what you had wished for happens,
its lone syllable like a sentence poised

at the edge of sense, waiting for you to say its name
once more as you lift your eyes from the page

close the book, still feeling what it was like
to dwell in that light, that sudden paradise of sound.