8.19.99

I wanted to have someone close by to ask if they were watching the moon tonight as I was. For awhile I sat on a bench just a few meters from a thin madrona tree whose witchy limbs poked toward the atmospheric membrane. Its bark was redder than usual in the embers of sunlight, and it looked magnificent and imposing against an aurora of pink clouds. A breeze was blowing, at which the madrona's branches shook in scorn. I ignored the shivers but held tight with my arms. Rainier hot pink lump in the distance, faded cooler toward purple, finally just frozen blue. The half moon soared high above in a violet dusk. The air was so clear that I could see each perfect edge of every ridge on the easternmost Olympics, and the moon's glow was pure -- unfiltered. Indeed the moon was chaste in white like Earth never was. A half moon is the most remarkable of the moon's phases. The clean bisection obscures curvature and the orb appears more two-dimensional than usual. Even in this clearest of all nights, when the texture of ancient pockmarks cannot be concealed, it is hard to discern any degree of convexity that would halt sunlight with such precision and elegance. I sat in utter stillness, recording its journey. And below, as darkness began to choke, I was delighted to find the whites of ferries and sailboats bravely lunar.

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