#WingedWordsWindsday: 2023/08/30 -- Full Blue Supermoon!

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 2, No. 44: August 30, 2023

 

 

Celebrating the Blue Supermoon TONIGHT!

 

Introduction

                Tonight, skywatchers around the world will be watching a celestial rarity – a full blue supermoon! First of all, a supermoon is a Full Moon that appears to be especially big and bright because the Full Moon is at its closest point in its orbit to Earth. Tonight’s Full Moon will be the biggest and brightest Full Moon of 2023!

                And just what is a Blue Moon? It’s the second Full Moon in a calendar month – a phenomenon that happens only once every 2-1/2 years or so (hence the expression, “Once in a Blue Moon”). The Moon won’t actually appear blue in the sky tonight – but that’s OK – it will still be bright and beautiful, like every other Full Moon that I’ve ever seen.

                To celebrate this auspicious occasion, here are some of my favorite poems about the Moon, which has been my favorite celestial object for as long as I can remember! 😊

 

Editor’s Note

            The annual cycle of the seasons and its effects on our natural surroundings are recurring themes throughout world literature. The Orphic poets – a guild of ancient Greek philosopher-bards named after their legendary founder, Orpheus – celebrated the changing of the seasons, the wonders of the natural world, and their lofty ideals in poetic chants, several dozen of which were preserved in written form after centuries of oral transmission. In the poetic forms of their protoscientific age (ca. 1000-500 BCE), the Orphic poets chose to personify the forces of Nature, the celestial orbs, and abstract ideals in order to explain how and why the natural world and the human social order function in the ways that they do.  In the following poem, we can learn how the ancient Greeks perceived the Moon, not as a dead rock in space, but as a living entity (or as a celestial orb ruled by a divine guardian – in this case, Artemis [in Greek] or Diana [in Latin]).

 

The Orion spacecraft's flyby of the Moon in the Artemis 1 mission, from December 2022. (Photo Credit: NASA -- Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Orphic Hymn #8: “To the Moon”

Translated by Thomas Taylor (1758-1835)

 

"But he (Jupiter) fabricated another boundless Earth, which the immortals call Selenë, but humans [call] Menë. Which has many mountains, many cities, many houses."

à Orphic Fragment

 

Hear, divine queen, diffusing silver light,

Bull-horned and wandering through the gloom of Night.

With stars surrounded, and with circuit wide

Night’s torch extending, through the heavens you ride:

Female and Male with borrowed rays you shine,

And now full-orbed, now tending to decline.

Mother of ages, fruit-producing Moon,

Whose amber orb makes Night’s reflected noon:

Lover of horses, splendid, queen of Night,

All-seeing power bedecked with starry light.

Lover of vigilance, the foe of strife,

In peace rejoicing, and a prudent life:

Fair lamp of Night, its ornament and friend,

Who gives to Nature’s works their destined end.

Queen of the stars, all-wife Diana hail!

Decked with a graceful robe and shining veil;

Come, blessed, divine, prudent, starry, bright,

Come lunar-lamp with chaste and splendid light,

Shine on these sacred rites with prosperous rays,

And pleased accept your suppliant’s mystic praise.

 

“The Moon”

By Sappho (ca. 630-570 BCE)

Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

 The stars about the lovely Moon

Fade back and vanish very soon,

When, round and full, her silver face

Swims into sight, and lights all space.

 

“Faeries”

By Evaleen Stein (1863-1923)

 Grandfather says that sometimes,

When stars are twinkling and

A New Moon shines, there come times

When folks see faery-land!

So when there’s next a New Moon,

I mean to watch all night!

Grandfather says a Blue Moon

Is best for faery light,

And in a peach-bloom, maybe,

If I look I shall see

A little faery baby

No bigger than a bee!

 

“Eldorado”

By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

 

Gaily bedight,

A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,

Had journeyed long,

Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

 

But he grew old—

This knight so bold—

And o’er his heart a shadow—

Fell as he found

No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

 

And, as his strength

Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow—

‘Shadow,’ said he,

‘Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?’

 

‘Over the Mountains

Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,

Ride, boldly ride,’

The shade replied,—

‘If you seek for Eldorado!’

 

“The Moon Blessing”

Collected by Alexander Carmichael (1832-1912) in Carmina Gadelica

 

May thy light be fair to me!

May thy course be smooth to me!

If good to me is thy beginning,

Seven times better be thine end,

Thou fair Moon of the seasons,

Thou great lamp of grace!

 

The One who created thee

Created me likewise;

The One who gave thee weight and light

Gave to me life and death,

And the joy of the seven satisfactions,

Thou great lamp of grace,

Thou fair Moon of the seasons.

 

“The Moon”

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

 

The Moon has a face like the clock in the hall;

She shines on thieves on the garden wall,

On streets and fields and harbor quays,

And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.

 

The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,

The howling dog by the door of the house,

The bat that lies in bed at noon,

All love to be out by the light of the Moon.

 

But all of the things that belong to the day

Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;

And flowers and children close their eyes

Till up in the morning the Sun shall arise.

 

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod”

By Eugene Field (1850-1895)

 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe —

Sailed on a river of crystal light,

Into a sea of dew.

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"

The old Moon asked the three.

"We have come to fish for the herring fish

That live in this beautiful sea;

Nets of silver and gold have we!"

Said Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

 

The old Moon laughed and sang a song,

As they rocked in the wooden shoe,

And the wind that sped them all night long

Ruffled the waves of dew.

The little stars were the herring fish

That lived in that beautiful sea —

"Now cast your nets wherever you wish —

Never afraid are we";

So cried the stars to the fishermen three:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

 

All night long their nets they threw

To the stars in the twinkling foam —

Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,

Bringing the fishermen home;

'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed

As if it could not be,

And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed

Of sailing that beautiful sea —

But I shall name you the fishermen three:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

 

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,

And Nod is a little head,

And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies

Is a wee one's trundle-bed.

So shut your eyes while Mother sings

Of wonderful sights that be,

And you shall see the beautiful things

As you rock in the misty sea,

Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

 

The Schrödinger Impact Basin is located near the South Pole of the Moon. (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“Kind Moon”

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

 

I think the Moon is very kind

To take such trouble just for me.

He came along with me from home

To keep me company.

 

He went as fast as I could run;

I wonder how he crossed the sky?

I'm sure he hasn’t legs and feet

Or any wings to fly.

 

Yet here he is above their roof;

Perhaps he thinks it isn’t right

For me to go so far alone,

Though Mother said I might.