Tonight and tomorrow this year's super moon is on display, it being at that point in the orbal dance when moon and earth are at their closest together. The moon looks quite large and is very white tonight, now looming above the bare oaks and the tops of the pines in a sky from which the clouds have mostly departed. I'd love to go out and watch it for a while, but there aren't enough blankets in the world to make that chilly air tolerable to me. I tried, but the chattering of my teeth broke the nocturnal quiet.
So I must content myself with the costly and thus limited warmth from the furnace, and the stuffy air of the house, and indulge in nostalgia for the lost nights when I gave not a fig for the cold. Mmmm, figs. Now I want figs. Cruel fate! Figless and chilled on a wintry night, deprived of the moon's loveliness by oversensitive nerves! Strange mutations!
Sunday Verse
The White Moon
by Paul Verlaine
The white moon
shines in the woods.
From each branch
springs a voice
beneath the arbor.
Oh my beloved...
Like a deep mirror
the pond reflects
the silhouette
of the black willow
where the wind weeps.
Let us dream! It is the hour...
A vast and tender
calm
seems to descend
from a sky
made iridescent by the moon.
It is the exquisite hour!
And in the original French:
La Lune Blanche
La lune blanche
Luit dans les bois;
De chaque branche
Part une voix
Sous la ramée...
O bien-aimée.
L'étang reflète,
Profond miroir,
La silhouette
Du saule noir
Où le vent pleure...
Rêvons, c'est l'heure.
Un vaste et tendre
Apaisement
Semble descendre
Du firmament
Que l'astre irise...
C'est l'heure exquise.