Supermoon
Supermoon
I
can’t resist going into the tree tonight to observe the so-called “supermoon.” It is the moon’s closest approach to the earth in 68 years and it will appear 14% larger than usual, I hear on the radio as I am driving around today.
On the way home from Hanover, Emme and I check out the moon on the horizon and decide that there is nothing remarkable about it. It looks pretty much like it always does.
But any reason to be in the tree is a good reason, so up I go with the camera. I find myself in a Gothic world of tangled vines and branches. An enclosed wood, with a thousand thousand arms against the sky. Woods like a cage, protective, confining, it’s not clear. Woods haunted by the moon.
These are the woods in which Hansel and Gretel get lost and are nearly devoured. The woods in which one might search for supernatural creatures and then regret finding them. They are the woods into which one might go to burrow deep into one’s own psyche. They are the woods of myth and dreams. Dark counterpoint to the forest lush with green and birdsong and summer light. And yet–the same woods. Each living inside the other.
Everyone should go walking at night at least once, alone, and sit in woods like these.
They are, like all woods, unnervingly beautiful.