The moon is high and full and bright red tonight. Soaring … just soaring over the glittering cityscape across the water … She leaves a bright red moonpath in the Hudson … bright red! I knew she would be there tonight when I came home from the city – last night had been a moonstruck night too, although there was a bit of a fuzzy edge to one side of her – so I knew she wasn’t quite full. Tonight, as my ghetto bus emerged from the tunnel, and we swooped up on the highway made famous in the Sopranos<\/i> opening credits – I peered out the window eagerly at the city – my city – across the way – looking for her. I knew she’d be there. The Hudson had a deep purplish tint to it, a startlingly weird color – very rare – and the buildings were alight – catching the dying glows of sunset. I love it when that happens: the Magic Hour of light. Gleaming shards of red glowed out of the walls of glass over there – but I was looking for something else. It’s hot today, a muggy smudgy hot – so things don’t have the clarity they normally do. The edges are blurred. It’s hard to see things clearly on such nights. Dusk makes things fuzzy. It’s not like a crisp wintry twilight, where the lights of the buildings frost up against the stark black of the sky, and you can see every corner clearly from a mile away. On a summery dusk, the river blends into the docks into the skyline into the sky, everything is charcoaled and smudged. So it took me a moment to find what I knew was there. A massive swollen glowing red moon, rising from up behind the new New York Times<\/i> building – so huge that I could see the peaks on the moon mountains, and the shadows of the valleys. Oh my God, what a sight. She looked HUGE. The man I was sitting next to on the bus, a short squat man wearing a baseball cap, noticed the moon at the same time and visibly started. He glanced at me and breathed, “Wow.”<\/p>\n
Wow, indeed.<\/p>\n
I have spent the last 2 hours wandering up and down Boulevard East – right where Mr. Clooney and his ladyfriend had the crash (glad you’re okay, bub! Let’s remember – there’s only one degree<\/a> between you and me, George! It is just a matter of time before you’re at a Thanksgiving dinner at some O’Malley home or other – so you should know I have your back – and I am glad you are okay! You crashed right near my house, bro – I probably heard it in my sleep it was that close!) Oh, where was I. The moon. I am moondrunk. I have been unable to come home until this moment. I watched her climb up through the sky – she lost the redness as she broke free of the city and the sunset – and now she beams with a brilliant light from high in the sky, unhinged, beyond reach. Her light will wake me up tonight, that’s the brightness we’re dealing with. I cannot get free of it – I walked up and down and up and down – for miles – staring up. I had some lemonade. I talked with the Trinidadian, briefly – he’s leaving for Europe next week for a couple months. We looked at the moon together and talked about it, a couple of miles away from one another. We said stuff like, “Can you believe it??” Normally, you know … I’m not into that kind of stuff. But with this moon?? Anything is possible. My feet ache from walking, I’m hungry and tired – but I couldn’t go home before I got my fill! It was just a moonrise, no big deal, but I didn’t want to miss a second of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The moon is high and full and bright red tonight. Soaring … just soaring over the glittering cityscape across the water … She leaves a bright red moonpath in the Hudson … bright red! I knew she would be there … Continue reading