Bella Luna

Falling in Love with the Moon: A song, an essay, a prompt

Tomorrow night, Monday August 19th, is a full moon night. It is special, a super blue moon, which are rare and worth the effort of finding a place to watch it rise. Here in eastern time, that will be 8:08 pm. Watch the ESE sky for that fat dusky orange globe to break the horizon, only 224,278 miles from Earth.

I will go alone to some isolated pullout on the Blue Ridge Pkwy and play the song, “Bella Luna” by Jason Mraz and I will want to weep for a man who can write a beautiful love song/poem to the moon. There will be tears for the fact that I am alone even though that is by both choice and need. I will sing the lyrics, “you’re the ghost of royalty imposing love/ You are the king and queen combining everything/ intertwining like the ring around the finger of a girl,” and wish once again that I had written a song as lovely.

I will be sad and lonely, yet happy to be alive and on this planet to watch a heavenly body which is the ebb and tide of my blood, made of the deep mystery of every dream I ever had, the craters mirroring scars on my soul from all I’ve lost. The cool light still shines on what I’ve gained by remaining here for this very thing—Bella Luna rising in my chest, slipping into my throat, a communion wafer melting on my tongue and between my thighs.

This full moon is commonly called the Sturgeon moon, named thus by the Native peoples of the Great Lakes regions. August was the time when giant sturgeon would school in great numbers making them easy to catch. But the August full moon goes by many names: Green Corn Moon; Corn in the Silk Moon; Black Cherries Moon; Plum Moon; Feathers Shedding Moon; Young Ducks Begin to Fly Moon. The Celts called it Dispute Moon (hmmm…) and Lynx Moon. Anglo-Saxons called it Grain Moon.

For me, this month’s moon must be Italian, Bella Luna. “A chosen child of golden sun/a marble dog that chases cars to farthest reaches of the beach and far beyond into the swimming sea of stars.” I lie awake with the full moon until she sets. I can’t sleep in full moonlight without having bizarre dreams, filled with Star Wars bar characters and memories that must come from a different life or universe altogether.

Part of me will remember that I am very recently divorced, that I have no lover, that I live alone with a little blind dachshund, that I have not held a warm human body close to mine for much too long. Another part will revel in the mystery of moon, that tonight, here, she is mine alone and I am drenched with her white light. Life is getting shorter all the time and tonight I do not want to share her.

“ Oh, bella, bella, please/ Bella, you beautiful Luna/ Oh bella, do what you do.”

For your assignment; I’ll do as my friend and one of my writing mentors (Trackless Wild SS and Journey in Place) Janisse Ray, does and hope she won’t mind. The first she calls Boots on the Ground: Watch that super blue moon rise ar 8:08 Monday night and let her light flood you with whatever needs to come through.

Part 2 is to simply write down 5 things you see or notice while she rises. As much as you can, put us there with you wherever you are. Tell us what you see, smell, hear, feel. It can be short. Share it in the comments please. This is a community and that requires some back and forth. This is how it begins.

Part 3 is for my more advanced readers and that is to write your own love poem to anything that you happen to love besides another human. Do this but use the word love sparingly if at all. Make us love it, too, through our senses; with the help of analogies and/or metaphors. At the very least, make us understand why and how you can love it so.

I can’t wait to read your responses, so write, right?