For the Mid-Autumn, or Moon, Festival
My Ford Explorer would ascend no higher:
Stuck half-way up that driveway’s first steep hill.
‘Twas a December night so cold and dire,
The truck, that old machine, had lost its will.
Not I, I sprang right up and looked about,
Fit spikes upon my boots to aid my climb
Along the path where rain had frozen stout.
My spikes, a nice thought, broke off in no time.
It wasn’t all bad, the moon lit up my way;
It left just enough purple bluish softness
So that I knew that I would never stray,
Though I couldn’t see my feet in the darkness.
With baby steps, my freezing fate unsure,
I had to laugh: what moonlit adventure!
Evan Mantyk is an English teacher living in New York.
Featured Image: “View of Dresden at Full Moon” by Johan Christian Dahl (1788 – 1857).
We’re getting ready to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival! Try mooncakes— they’re the best. 🙂
The Moon
“…the moon lights up my way…”
—Evan Mantyk
I saw the lovely, moon arising, lovely, full and warm,
surrounded by a white corona, circling its form.
Its beauty was spectacular, its craters and its light.
Aloof, afar, alone it shone in shadows of the night.
I longed to know that man, that smiling man up in the moon,
whose cheeks were brutal, bruised, his head hard as a stone.
I longed to stand upon his face, like Neil Armstrong did,
if only for a moment’s trice, as happy as a kid.
But such will never be, and so, I’ll spend my life on Earth,
and gaze in awe up at his smile, remembering my dearth.