Ah! The Moon!

Good day on Saturday, December 10, 2011.

When I got up at five a.m. today, I set the water to boil for coffee, let the cat out of the garage, and proceeded outside in the dark to get the paper.  I remembered that there had been an eclipse a couple of hours earlier, but thought it would be worth looking for. I looked to the northwest in an open space of black, starry wintry sky, and this is what I saw.

I saw a huge beautiful clear white slice of moon lying horizontal in the sky, and just above it, the entire rest of a circle in rusty red.  The eclipse was passing slowly away, leaving an ever larger slice of brilliant moon surface in its wake.  I must remember this, for this is the last full eclipse I shall ever see unless I go to live in another time zone when I get old.

I remember the last one I saw. I looked out of my bedroom window at Lyndon Road, and watched the full eclipse come and go (at a more convenient hour that time)...I remember how strange it looked when the whole moon surface was painted with a dull rusty red, how solid it suddenly looked up there, how very present and heavy to be there in the sky. No wonder people saw such visions as charged with portent. Made a believer out of me for sure.

That was the only significant thing I did in the last twenty four hours.  Saw the moon leaving full eclipse, for the last time it'll be visible in this longitude and latitude for many a long year.  But--who knows? I may be living somewhere else, and see it somewhere else, the next time it happens. Maybe this isn't the last time for me after all.YAZZYBEL