Letters to the moon

O patient mirror of the night,

you rise, unhurried,

a lesson in recurrence.

While the world below

measures itself by progress and decay,

you circle—

unconcerned with direction,

faithful only to return.

What are you,

if not the quiet proof

that illumination need not belong

to its source?

The sun claims fire;

you claim stillness—

and yet both are called light.

I have wondered

if your phases are a philosophy:

to wax is not ambition,

to wane is not loss.

All is motion under disguise,

a rhythm mistaken for change.

You have no voice,

yet even silence has gravity.

Perhaps wisdom, too,

is an orbit—

the soul revolving around

what it cannot possess,

but must always face.

And so I write,

not to reach you,

but to remember

that distance, rightly seen,

is also connection.