slingshot moon and hungry sun

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A few days ago, the poet glanced at the moon from a garden.

The moon looked close enough to grasp, but was receding (the poet had been told) from earth, the rate fingernails grow, one and a half inches a year. The poet wrote:

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 their life lengthens, but has also been told that the length of days is actually increasing, 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 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 circumstances to let silence 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