moon

helpful info: the first two photos are mine. accidental flash and tiny, tiny moon. the last photo is the sweetie's. blow it up. see a crater or five.

the full worm moon is out there. the almanac says so. it is the moon that keeps time with the earthworms and it promises spring. i head out with the camera around ten because it is not just the worm moon. this moon has edged up close to us, closer than it will be for a long while again, showing a face like a flashlight beam.

the night is cool, not quite thirty. the down the street goat is yelling, maybe in answer to that auction on the corner at casey joe's. the goat's voice punctuates the call of the auctioneer from time to time like he is bidding and not being heard. the air smells like woodsmoke and melted snow and dark. there is nothing in the sky but the moon and all those stars. no clouds. i forget them sometimes in winter, the stars, but they don't go far, just dance around in a big circle overhead. like a square dance i'm in the middle of.

there are new constellations and i do not like this at all. triangle. giraffe. i cannot see a giraffe in any of those stars but i do see folks i know. orion is standing on top of the giant pine tree across the street. and over to the south, up above pakatakan, i think is one of those planets. mercury or jupiter maybe. not venus. it is so bright i think it must be yelling from where it is. not a planet, then, not the way it winks and yells. dogstar. loud like that goat, explosive.

but the moon is back over in the east, just above the roof of the old factory. it shoves light through the fat spruce when i stand in the driveway. i take picture after picture but it is so far away in the camera screen. little kids do not ever get how far away the moon is. farther away than kansas city, certainly. farther away than california. but even grown up we still don't know. our brains can calculate the numbers but can make nothing of the space. i hand the camera over to the sweetie and he and the little machine confer a bit under the porchlight. he looks at the moon with the camera and brings it down. as big as it looks in the sky. bigger. i can hold it in my hands. the closest it will be for years.