Chasing the Moon

She didn’t come up softly or silently

Neither did she peer this way or that before

Putting in the appearance

We had been waiting

We thought it would be

A grand entrance

We camped out on mountain tops

We sat around beaches wrapped in towels and blankets

With cameras on tripods

Fiddling with the settings, pacing slowly on

The walls of tidal pools like relatives

In the hallways of maternity hospitals

Waiting

For that perfect moment

We had all received some telling of her coming

Via lunar calendars and social media and

Those who always know everything about everything

Who could be relied upon to be at the right place at the right time

Many were practically astronomers by Great Moonday

But

Most of us weren’t

We were just where we would have been anyway

And then

We all just kind of stopped when it started happening

And we didn’t move again

It was a kind of magic we weren’t expecting

which descended on our bay with a quiet amber balminess

We just stood and waited

Whatever else we were supposed to be doing

would wait

From behind the mountains across the sea

Appeared a crimson glow

Like maybe the Martians were coming

without the Jeff Wayne music

maybe we all heard different music

Maybe for some it was The Eve of the War

Maybe it was Sibelius or Grieg or Beethoven

But something was playing in our minds as we beheld the Great Appearance of the round red queen

There was a party bobbing quietly in the tidal pool waiting for her to arrive

I thought maybe some kind of cosmic healing was going to happen and for a moment I was a bit sorry I had forgotten my bathing costume

But, it was Winter, so I stopped feeling like that and just watched the mountain

Later I heard that there were some who had chased the moon

It had not even occurred to me to chase her

It hadn't occurred to me that she was running anywhere, so I hope they caught up with her because there was enough of her to go around

as she spread her crimsonish liquid across the mountains and the sea

Maybe she traded places with the sun because that was where the sun usually comes out

There was no way to describe the glow

It tasted and smelt like mandarin

and sounded as smooth as a solo sax

Unhurried by the constraints of a time signature

Or the vanity of a single other musician

And not being one of those who knows everything

I don’t even think I should say she was orange

She was fragrant, warm and spicy, like chai

Maybe she tasted like

mulled wine with cinnamon or

Freshly ground coffee beans with a touch of chilli chocolate

The sound of something we had not heard before

But we knew the song because it had played in our hearts since before we were born into our earthly bodies

I just watched as she kind of rolled out from behind the mountain in her fabulous party dress, voluptuous and chilled and fragrant and smooth

Just like that

And I felt warm and happy that I had seen her come