How Shines The Moon Poem by Harley White

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.