Meditating on Tonight's Super Moon, Enlarged but Concealed

Picture that you’re sitting

Eyes closed on the blue

Exercise mat

Head facing east towards

The full moon as it’s rising

It’s a super moon at that

But obscured by a thin

Scrim of cloud cover

It’s unseen but felt

As a distinct presence

From crown to nape

You’re sitting up straight

Meditating in fact

On the yin power as it is

Most perfectly expressed

Now when it is both full

And concealed

Which is why

Tonight’s super moon

Hanging somewhere up there

In the sky’s eastern expanse

Is such a perfect metaphor

For my soul – immortal or otherwise -

It’s simply a gift of borrowed radiance

Bouncing off rocky barren soil

Evident only as a faint flickering

From the curtain’s other side

No more than a lumen or two

That's barely detectable

With my eyes either

Open or closed

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Since moving to East Quogue this year it has become a ritual for me to walk down to the end of Weesuck Avenue in order to watch the full moon rise over the Creek. At first, I was somewhat disappointed tonight because there was a thick cloud cover that obscured the sky to the south and east. But then a few fingers above the horizon I began to detect the super moon rising, evident at first only as backlighting (worthy of the finest Santo Loquasto set) that lit up a plane of stratus clouds facing eastward. The illumination gradually increased revealing a vast cloud structure that had been jerry rigged to encase the moon. Quite an incredible site really. And I realized that to see the super-moon rise this way, by implication, is to experience the Yin power in its greatest extremity - when it is both engorged and concealed.  The poem above was written a little bit later, after returning home and meditating some, thinking about this striking Yin apparition.  And the photo below was taken by my wife a little bit later in the evening as the moon continued to play hide and seek.

Super Moon Super Scrim (M. Bridge)