A Moon Brighter Than the Sun

The moon, without brightness of its own, asked the sun for a daily loan of light. To which the sun, jealous of its monopoly on light, responded, “You will reflect but a mere fraction of my brilliance.” “Then I will have to make it count,” thought the moon. Thus night is alive with sights touched by the moon and made brighter by shadows, a lone ship moving soundlessly on a lunar sea, cobblestones glistening after rain, a woman’s dress ablaze with sequins on a balcony, a caravan silhouetted atop a sand dune, the feeling confessed by the eyes of two would-be lovers on a country lane, a baby asleep in a cradle, moonlit through the bedroom window. Glimpses which the sun, with its all-illuminating light, would only hide.