The moon rises over destroyed buildings in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on December 15, 2024
Credit: Saher Alghorra
By S. J. Litherland
We share the full moon in our sky tonight, the same moon in whatever
hemisphere, whatever quarter, the full moon a language that does not lie.
Is it a disc? It faces the earth with one side only. Is it near and far?
Is it the same to a druid, a traveller in the desert, a Chinese poet
who mistakes the moon’s reflection in water and drowns, a drunken
poet, the bedchamber that does not think or see flooded in moonlight
whether willing or not, the war planes that bless the moon, the dark cities
naked with their clothes on, the clear clear night that was the end
of Coventree, the bomber’s moon on the wrong side of history opened
the night as it rose, the keys to the kingdom, the three spires, courtyards,
she died in her full medieval dress. The moon that looks over the ghost
of Gaza, the rubble of the past, the same moon full beam that overlooks
this night of October Seven, the same moon signals grief over the earth
below, over the same earth that does not lie, don’t look away, the ghosts
of peace lovers who died two years ago with their farms, children,
and socialism, who were in the way. Their ghosts entwine with enemies
who were their friends, this simple pact beyond the sense of the living.
