"Moon over North Point Cove", taken with a Canon 5d camera, Circa 2006.

"AND THE MOON BE STILL AS BRIGHT" *

Late one night, several years ago, I awakened to an effervescent glow squeezing through the mini-blinds of my bedroom windows. For some reason I had retired early, so -- amid the whitewash of light flowing into the room -- instead of yanking my current I-can't-go-to-sleep book from the nightstand and reading until I nodded off, I wandered out onto the chilly lakefront deck.

The full circle of moon was so bright my body cast long shadows on the decking. From nowhere a thick cloud drifted across the moon's yellow face, and like an opaque curtain being drawn over a window, the moonlight flicked off: a cosmic lightswitch had been thrown. In the crushing dark, pinpoints of stars burst into existence, their constellations leaping out against the blackened sky. Then, as the marauding cloud swept clear of the moon, the momentary star shine was once again swallowed up in the harsh rush of moonlight. I raised my hand and let its eerie shadow fall across my face.

What a mystery this moon has been for millennia, even now that science has managed to stamp the footprint of civilization onto its surface. I spread my fingers and let the moonlight streak through. "And the moon be still as bright."

Yes. Exactly.

And then I went to get my camera and tripod.

*from the poem, "So We'll Go No More a Roving", by George Gordon, Lord Byron

Used as Parting Shot in the Daily Herald's Lake Magazine.