slingshot moon and hungry sun

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A few days ago, the poet’s glancing at the moon from a garden.

For a second, the moon looks close enough to grasp but – realising it’s receding from earth at the rate fingernails grow (one and a half inches a year) the poet dashes off this poem:

waxing gibbous moon

floats pale between the branches

ghostly slingshot stone

slowly spinning out into

                                          deep space

                        around

                                          the hungry

sun which will consume us all.

Like many folks, the poet feels the days getting shorter as life lengthens, but they’ve also heard that days, actually, are getting longer–over a dozen microseconds longer every year.

And all this time, with the sun expanding, slowly turning itself into a red giant star, growing more than a hundred times larger, it’s getting ready to devour and feed on the planets, with Mercury and Venus first in line to be consumed.

What unimaginable things Gaia has in store for us in 5 billion years’ time, the poet thinks.

They stop reflecting, dazzled enough by these facts to let stillness soothe their mood as the moon inches away.

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Ō

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Photos taken by Freddie Oomkens earlier this week