Moonset and Midwinters

I often cannot see the night sky, here in the mountains of North Carolina.  There's usually too many trees that obscure the view, which seems a fair trade most nights.  But in the winter months of no leaves on the trees, I get unexpected treats as I glimpse a star here and there.

This morning there was the delight of the setting moon.  I was working on a poem that I was writing, a poem inspired by an in-class writing experiment that led to some good student writing (see this blog post for details).  I thought I might write from the point of view of the saw mill blade, but instead, I focused on the door frame, the door frame that was once a tree, that sacrificed essential parts of itself to become a door frame.  Was it worth it?  The door frame feels sorrow, much like many adults I know who feel sorrow about the sacrifices made along the way.

As I was writing it, the poem seemed tired and trite to me.  Writing about it now, I think it has potential.  I'll put it away for a bit and see if anything new comes to me.

As I was writing, the setting moon caught my eye, and I thought, I'd probably see this beautiful moon better if I turned off the lights in this room.  And so, I did, and it was amazing, watching the moon set beyond the bare branches of the trees.  The moon was shrouded in haze, so it had more of a Halloween vibe than a December vibe.  I tried to summon a December feeling by thinking about the haunting Christmas hymn, "In the Deep Midwinter."  I thought about Christina Rossetti, author of the words.

I wrote this Facebook post:   "The moon is setting to the west, and I see it through the bare branches of the trees, and I hum a bit of "In the Bleak Midwinter," and think about Christina Rossetti's underappreciated brilliance, like the brilliance of the moon, reflecting the light of those Pre-Raphaelites, transforming that light into something far more focused and incisive."

I thought about trying to take a picture to go with the Facebook post, but my phone isn't as advanced as those that other people have.  The picture would have been more spooky than wintry, if it captured anything much at all.

And now the mountains are the rosy purple of reflected sunrise.  And now it is time to get back to grading, a constant for the next few days.