The Moon

I love the moon. It once inspired me to write this weird and depressing poem:

The Face of Winter

I look into the icy opacity
To see the heartless light.
My soul is muffled under the warm blanket of sorrow.
It is vulnerable.
I do not want it to freeze in the sharp beams.
I remember the man with his garish smile--
Smiling at tragedy below.
I used to smile back.
But how I fear this day to meet his gaze!
A hesitant tilt of the eyes
Upward.
My gaze is fixed.
Perhaps his heart is not frozen,
For I see a wondrous sight.
The skeletal grin is forgotten--
In its place:
A face--
Lost in weeping.
A kindly visage--
Wrinkled in sorrow.
An eye--
Sparkling with ready tears.
Perhaps he is not blind.
He sees us here.
He sees the pain.
He hears the sobs.
And he feels.
He feels.
Perhaps Cyrano was right.
Maybe they are up there--
Socrates
Galileo
The great Gascon himself.
Maybe they told him--
It was not what it seemed.
The maidens in their beds
Had nightmares--
Phantom terrors of sleep.
The children were cold and huddled in their beds.
The fields of flowing silver were a front.
They painted death
On frosty blades of grass.
Maybe the exiles told him.
Maybe he discovered it himself.
But he is not smiling.
Maybe it is me.

Ah, teenage angst.

Anyway, I still feel that way about the moon sometimes, but not today.

It is winter, but tonight's moon is not cold, though I can't say that it is a warm moon. I was going to say that it was impersonal, but upon consideration, I would say rather that it is angelic. That is why it is neither warm nor cold. It is too perfectly untouched by humanity to be warm, but too wonderfully good to be cold. It is a full moon, but I could not imagine any werewolf transforming under its influence. When I first saw it, the sky was still a deep light blue--right before it becomes dark night blue. Today was a day of clouds and sky, and the clouds were a beautiful grey color. When the clouds moved across the moon it was beautiful, not creepy the way it sometimes is. I wish I could write a poem about the way the moon looked to me this evening.

I am thinking about writing about the moon for one of my final papers. I've been thinking about it, because it comes up in literature so much, and I have vague ideas about it, but I want to know more.