An unnatural moon?

The Minnesota Weatherguide notes that tonight’s full moon is the ricing moon (Ojibwe) or the harvest moon (Lakota). At month’s end, we’ll have a “blue moon.” Since there are 13 full moons but only 12 months in a year, I’m not sure what the Ojibwe name is for the second full moon this month. Here’s a resource if you want to try to sort it out. The Lakota named their 13 moons by the season, not the month.

full August moon

Photo by J. Harrington

Purple loosestrife is in bloom in local wetlands and marshes. Bees and butterflies don’t seem to care that it’s an invasive plant on which they’re foraging. Unless there’s a blockage (dam) on the river, local water levels are very to extremely low on the St. Croix.

Over the years, I’ve been poking around the National Park Service wild and scenic river web site, but it wasn’t until today that I discovered these natural resources inventories for the St. Croix. I’m looking forward to scanning them someday soon. (We could use more than a few rainy days this August.)

It is now mid-afternoon on Tuesday, August 1, 2023. I have so far managed to avoid logging onto Elon’s Xfiles, for this first tweetless Tuesday. I’ll defer posting this link there until tomorrow morning. I will post it to Mastodon @JohnHthePoet https://mstdn.party/home. I noticed that my scanning the online versions of Star Tribune and Guardian did nothing to really improve my perspective on the state of the world. There are so many problems about which I can do little or nothing that I’m not sure why I should kknow about them. Maybe one of these days it will be time for me to question why neither of those “papers” does much by way of solutions journalism. Meanwhile, I’m feeling more human after spending time exploring geopoetics in practice and literary field guides.

Moon Ghazal

By Dorianne Laux

I can’t remember the first time I saw it, seems it was

always there, even with me in the womb, the moon.

It must have been night, above the ocean, making a path

on the waves, gilded invitation, the parchment moon.

Or the day moon, see-through-y wafer over desert, caught

in the arms of saguaro, thin-skinned, heart-stuck moon.

Blue as new milk, aquarium water, Mexican tile, blue

as cold-bitten fingertips, nailbeds’ quick-blue arcs, half-moons.

How I felt when I saw my first grown boy, round-eyed,

all sinew and muscle, his calves, his biceps, plump as moons.

Buttons, doorknobs, volleyballs, clocks, egg yolk, orange

slice, violet iris, our planet a pupil, mote in the eye of the moon.

The cell inside me splitting and splitting, worm of the fetus,

tadpole, the glazed orb of the eye, my belly taut as the moon.

The blood-streaked moon of her head pushing through, moons

of the faces above me, urging me, pulling, promising the moon.

There are earthquakes on the moon, water, not geologically dead,

still acting like a planet: upheaval, turmoil, shaking her head, the moon.

When I see the earth of you I still feel moonquakes, even now, after

so many moons my round breasts swoon, your fingertips, small moons.

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