Harvest Moon 2019

The moon, like a flower in heaven's bower, with silent delight sits and smiles on the night.

                                                                                                       William Blake

The full Harvest Moon casts its shadow across the planet tonight. As the moon emerges from the sea, coastal residents can experience the sublime event precisely as it has been viewed by humans for thousands of years. It is no wonder a star-filled dome over land's end and the timeless sound of surf capture and command our consciousness so easily. Add a moon rise and all reason flees.

Lowcountry moonrise over McQueens Island east of Savannah, Ga, ca. 1950

“...Her eyes, he says, are stars at dusk,

Her mouth as sweet as red-rose-musk;

And when she dances his young heart swells

With flutes and viols and silver bells;

His brain is dizzy, his senses swim,

When she slants her ragtime eyes at him...

Moonlight shadows, he bids her see,

Move no more silently than she.

It was this way, he says, she came,

Into his cold heart, bearing flame.

And now that his heart is all on fire

Will she refuse his heart's desire?―...”

                                                                                         Conrad Aiken

The harvest moon is climbing high. Go outside. Get lost in it. Smile back.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
National Park Service, Fort Pulaski National Monument handbook, 1954

Text:
intro quotation, William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience, originally published in 1789.

poem excerpt, Conrad Aiken