Do you think the moon knows
how loved they are?
That on a rock somewhere
they will never touch,
entire worlds worth
of people will pen
painful, yearning, honest
verses about them?

Do they know that
one human’s footprint
on their surface is but
a symbol for the billions
across time that have
sang songs of their beauty
and strung together
similes about their light
and wrote entire mythologies
of their love affair
with the sun and stars?

Did they know how
Sappho and Shakespeare
would immortalize line
after line about them
with longing, or that
somewhere in the
twenty first century,
some broke poet from Philly
would find such sweet comfort
in the sight of them that
said poet would weave them
irrevocably into the fabric
of their most beloved story?

Maybe the moon will
never know how loved they are.
But I’d rather spend my nights
hoping we exist in
a universe where they do.

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YOUR PROMPT FOR THE DAY

What is your favorite memory of the moon? Was it a time you stargazed with a friend, or the way it rose over the ocean? Did you kiss someone by it’s light or cry, waiting for it to set so the sun could return? Jot down some verses or create a piece of art that explores this.

If you decide to share something for this prompt, be sure to tag it on social media with #CountdownToTheStars.

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This post is the “Moonlight” entry in the Countdown to the Stars blog series. To learn more about the countdown and the book (coming Nov 2022) visit stillthestars.com.

This post was originally shared to Queery Letters which is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Featured Photo by Abed Ismail on Unsplash