The Moon That Lost Its Shine Poem by linus gerald

There was a night
when the moon forgot itself.

Not vanished—
not broken—
just dimmed,
as if the sky had whispered
that brightness was too bold a thing.

It hung there,
a pale coin in a closed fist of dark,
remembering oceans it once pulled,
wolves it once called,
lovers it once baptized in silver.

Clouds passed like doubt.
Cities hummed below without looking up.
The stars kept their distance—
small, unburdened witnesses.

The moon wondered
when it began apologizing for its glow.
When it traded radiance for permission.
When it mistook quiet
for disappearance.

But light is stubborn.

It lives in stone and scar,
in crater and curve,
in borrowed brilliance and battered face.
Even dimmed,
the moon was still a mirror
of a distant fire.

And somewhere beneath it,
a tide leaned forward.
A night-blooming flower opened.
A child traced its outline on a window
and called it beautiful.

The moon did not need to blaze
to be believed.

It only needed to remain.

And slowly—
without spectacle,
without applause—
it remembered:

Shine is not something you keep.
It is something you return to.