Earthshine

by CD Richards

Picture, at our world’s beginning, dust and gases in space spinning,
then accreting, underpinning what some call a grand design.
Other clouds of swirling gases and debris were forming masses,
and these wanderers made passes, in their orbits now confined.
Gravitational attraction guides their actions, thus confined;
witnessed only by starshine.

Then, it's thought, a chance collision, magnitude hard to envision,
caused a rift, a great division; bodies whose fates now align.
Thus, a satellite we came by, pride of place within our night sky;
luminescent orb up on high, to the sailors, a lifeline.
Mariners at sea pay homage, to their heavenly lifeline.
Earth is bathed in bright moonshine.

Here we cannot end this story, for it seems obligatory
Earth reflect the sun's full glory; balance is the bottom line.
When the moon appears a crescent, if I am in darkness present,
faintly, far from incandescent, seen by these old eyes of mine
is the entire lunar circle, visible to eyes of mine.
All revealed thanks to earthshine.

Yes, the moon's poorly reflective, though more so than the invective
spouted by a small collective, men with motives not benign.
There's a darkness on this planet, and it's mankind that began it,
for it seems that hearts of granite are the stuff of our bloodline.
Human actions tell the story of a violent bloodline.
Mostly, evil deeds outshine.

Is there hope for this, our species? Are our hearts but mere prostheses?
Just more primates hurling feces, our behaviour asinine?
Were we just to learn compassion, kindness might return to fashion,
then we'd moderate our passion; if these things we could combine.
When we learn to reason clearly, thought and action to combine,
some day, maybe, we will shine.

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Recognized

Today's word: earthshine (n.) the reflection of sunlight by the Earth onto an otherwise dark part of the moon.

* "Planet" goes back to ancient Greek "planet-" (literally, "wanderer"), which is derived from "planasthai," a Greek verb which means "to wander."

* "gases" is the correct UK and Australian spelling.

Image: Earth Shine, Dylan O'Donnell (public domain).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65141172@N00/16408987882
Brightness and contrast modified by the author.

My much-treasured Christmas present for 2017 is a book by Paul Anthony Jones: "The cabinet of linguistic curiosities". Each page contains a descriptive story about some obscure or archaic word. It occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to try and write, each day, a poem featuring the "word of the day" from the book.

Thanks for reading.

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With thanks to Edgar Allan Poe

A chapter in the book A Potpourri of Poetic Curiosities

Earthshine

by CD Richards

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