Monika and I went out moon chasing today. We like to do it on full moon nights. The occasion presents itself only twelve or thirteen times an year, so we really look forward to it. Sometimes we forget, sometimes we are busy, but today was different.
We first went to the river on the eastern side of the island, and from the water's edge, watched the moon come up behind the mangroves. It was cloudy since we are in mid-monsoons, and we got to see the moon emerge from the clouds when it was fairly high. 'You realize that we can see the full moon rising only when it's low tide, don't you?' I said to Monika, pretending it was something really basic, though I realized it only then.
After that we went around the island, watching the moon over paddy fields and through trees and on the long stretch of road with water on both sides. We didn't go over the hills, saving that view for the next time. I was reminded about a poem sent by my dear friend Prava Rai, who incidentally drove by our home in the morning and sneaked in a lovely climber from her garden that I wanted for our patch of land. Here's her poem (brilliant, I think … one of the best I have read recently). The fireflies she mentions are all over the island and some of them come into our bedroom every night:
Dawn whispers among unseen leaves,
Fireflies flash, holding the great light at bay.
My mind falters through the leaves of the book I read
Into dark and terrible lands.
I hope for light.
The smudged moon has disappeared,
Perhaps swallowed by the tide.
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