How Shines the Moon

How comes the moon to shine on high?— a simple query, so it seems… Yet though its glow can light the sky, from where arise those silver beams? Do we imagine gleaming rays from self-illumined orb of night still visible through sunlit days as drifting earthly satellite? Albeit a deceptive view as Parmenides suspected, mirrors may catch with brilliance true even radiance reflected. When Armstrong from Apollo probe stepped out on ground with grayish tint, we spied the craters of that globe along with astronaut footprint. The moon cannot give off the sheen of all the sunlight it receives, for most that falls upon that scene its regolighic surface thieves. And what about the face we see during a lunar crescent phase, while slivery as it can be amidst its ever-changing ways? The rest in ashen glow is lit by earthshine to that orb we give. So we spot more than glossy bit through rebound rays from where we live that then bounce back to us again. Its far side, long a mystery, was photographed on spacecraft, when the Luna 3 made history. This abiding lamp nocturnal glimmers in the darkness dreary, through our joy or grief infernal, guiding souls forlorn and weary. Moonstruck dreamers through the ages gazed with wonderment up above, filling endless lyric pages with euphonious songs of love. That pearly visage dear to us, does science take away its thrill by making matters clear to us? So much is known already… still with poesy of clair de lune we mortals rhapsodize the moon. ~ Harley White