Moon 2 excerpt.
The moon is looking down into the canon, and how marvelously the great rocks kindle to her light! Every dome, and brow, and swelling boss touched by her white rays, glows as if lighted with snow." John Muir, Steep Trails
How Many Moons are there
One, Or one pair, For every set of seeing eyes?
Now here is our moon. A pebble stuck in space -- so small by contrast to the omni-ball of sun. It intersects some tiny fraction of the whole and reveals it. Tonight, where the moon is full, it shows the fullness of light that it weeds. (Of course, the moon is always full … just not full to the people on earth.) And what does it do with this light?
It hurls it at us like hose. The moon is a hose, watering our eyes with light. And what does it hurl? Here I’m not quite sure. I guess a kind of tube like circle … a tube so long that it stretches from the moon to me … a kind of speeding cylinder that punches through the portal of my eye. The eye grabs the front end of the oncoming rush, inverts it and makes it small like a movie on the back of my eye. Somewhere on the back of me, caught in the retina net is a little circle punch of light triggering yet another electric pulse that tells my brain about the thing hitting my retina. Of course, as I’ve said before, this is not one circle inside me but two. Could they be the size of a paper punch hole, or are they smaller? Whatever, I have two little circles of light inside me, Upside down and burning like a magnifying glass applied to the back of the curve. (If I stand still long enough will my eye catch fire?)
So I think of me with these circles inside me, even as much of the rest of my inner eye is at rest. Then I think of these other millions of looking eyes. We all wear little circle burns inside us. We have glowing embers of moon light in us, little fragments of the sun echoed and faint but alive and filling us – I hope – with loveliness. And now here is the thought -- Not only we, but the animals too. Do a million cows stand with me in the world? The moon is dotted in the eyes of cows and coyotes, salamanders and fish, flamingoes (if they are awake) – and wolves.
And now. Oh Dear. A fly is looking at the moon. Does he see one --- or a thousand? Is the moon to a fly like a thousand balls --- or does it fall into his mind like a shattered mirror.
So here, I close my eyes and darken the world with my mind until all that I can see are dots of light resting in a billion retinas. Retinas of snakes and eagles, high floating fish, and folks in love resting on their backs. The world tonight is dusted in retina light – something like a map of the states at night by satellite. A fire-fly paste…. Patches specks and faint murmurs of light cover this side of the planet, in every eye where little ricocheted suns reside. The moon is logged in a million eyes. We think of it as large. But it is so much glowing pollen scattered over earth caught in jelly bowls.
It hurls it at us like hose. The moon is a hose, watering our eyes with light. And what does it hurl? Here I’m not quite sure. I guess a kind of tube like circle … a tube so long that it stretches from the moon to me … a kind of speeding cylinder that punches through the portal of my eye. The eye grabs the front end of the oncoming rush, inverts it and makes it small like a movie on the back of my eye. Somewhere on the back of me, caught in the retina net is a little circle punch of light triggering yet another electric pulse that tells my brain about the thing hitting my retina. Of course, as I’ve said before, this is not one circle inside me but two. Could they be the size of a paper punch hole, or are they smaller? Whatever, I have two little circles of light inside me, Upside down and burning like a magnifying glass applied to the back of the curve. (If I stand still long enough will my eye catch fire?)
So I think of me with these circles inside me, even as much of the rest of my inner eye is at rest. Then I think of these other millions of looking eyes. We all wear little circle burns inside us. We have glowing embers of moon light in us, little fragments of the sun echoed and faint but alive and filling us – I hope – with loveliness. And now here is the thought -- Not only we, but the animals too. Do a million cows stand with me in the world? The moon is dotted in the eyes of cows and coyotes, salamanders and fish, flamingoes (if they are awake) – and wolves.
And now. Oh Dear. A fly is looking at the moon. Does he see one --- or a thousand? Is the moon to a fly like a thousand balls --- or does it fall into his mind like a shattered mirror.
So here, I close my eyes and darken the world with my mind until all that I can see are dots of light resting in a billion retinas. Retinas of snakes and eagles, high floating fish, and folks in love resting on their backs. The world tonight is dusted in retina light – something like a map of the states at night by satellite. A fire-fly paste…. Patches specks and faint murmurs of light cover this side of the planet, in every eye where little ricocheted suns reside. The moon is logged in a million eyes. We think of it as large. But it is so much glowing pollen scattered over earth caught in jelly bowls.
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