02.27.07
Moon Watching
For centuries, man has looked at the moon and has had fantasies that it is made of green cheese. There have been mentions of the moon in song and in verse. In the 1950s, I used to hear the song, “Fly Me to the Moon” -(I want to live among the stars…”) That was written by Bart Howard in 1954.
Growing up, I also watched the “Jackie Gleason Show,” on television, not because I wanted to, but because it was a show my parents watched. Whenever Jackie had a disagreement with “Alice,” his wife, he would say, “Do you want to go to the moon?” He’d repeat the question. The inference was that he would hit her so hard, she would land on the moon. (That was in an age before activism against domestic violence.)
A more pleasant reference to the moon is the song, “Moon River,” a collaborative effort of Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini. This was a song of the early 1960s that a certain family member really enjoyed.
Trucking forward a few years, Cat Stevens wrote one of his greatest hits, the song, “Moonshadow.” “I’m being followed by a moonshadow.”
Somehow, the moon is magical, if not a bit demystified by man having landed on it. During the “full moon,” lunatics are supposedly a little more “looney.” There is the Harvest Moon, always a time for celebration for having gathered the last of the vegetable and fruit crops for the winter. The words, “Harvest Moon Festival” are sometimes strung together.
If you are a Star Trek fan, then you will remember the saying, oft repeated by one of the characters, “Beam Me Up, Scotty!” The rest of the saying, added later, I believe, is “There is no intelligent life down here.”
We are always reaching to transcend our own fate of being mere, earth-bound, humans. The greater universe provides us with a sense that there is more to life than we know, or even could ever fathom.
Not long ago, for example, I learned about the “Black Hole.” Scientists feel that the edge of the universe has so much power, it could potentially suck us all into its grasp. That is a very non-scientific explanation!
In a very strange mood, on September 8, 2000, I wrote a poem that mentions the Black Hole.
“The Old Woman”
There was an old woman
who could not tie her shoes.
She’d had so many children
She didn’t know what to do…
and could not find her own shoes,
half the time.
She was convinced that her children
had stolen them
or that maybe they had been
sucked into the Black Hole of the universe
along with her missing children.
She knew she’d never see them again.
The first part of another poem, that I wrote, goes like this:
“The Space Ship”
Someday, I’ll take a space ship
and journey far and wide
and try to find a comfy spot
where feelings needn’t hide.
I know this place exists - nowhere-
only in the mind,
of one who seeks and says the Truth -
even when it burns.
The theme of wanting to escape this earthly travail by traveling into the skies, is not a new one. One of the tenets of Christianity is that Christ himself was resurrected from the dead and “rose into Heaven.” This scene has been depicted in art, for centuries.
Moon imagery is even present in songs for children. “Wynken and Blynken and Nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe”…to the moon! There is a verse for children, “I see the moon and the moon sees me…,” that has been set to music, and even stitched onto pillows for sale commercially.
Then, there’s the song sung by Bill Staines, “Rooty, Toot, Toot for the Moon.”
Whether you enjoy seeing the moon, in all of its phases, or if you simply enjoy songs about the moon, that great round orb in the sky, you know that the moon is something you can count on. It controls the tides, it lights the night sky, with regularity, and it has been a great inspiration for lovers and dreamers, since time immemorial.
Patricia
