一只猫头鹰静悄悄地从山头俯冲而下，却在月色下如火光闪过。一只蟋蟀在草丛中尖声歌唱，我不由得想起了诗人和音乐家——贝多芬的《月光奏鸣曲》和莎士比亚笔下的《威尼斯商人》中洛伦佐的话：“月光沉睡在这岸边多么迷人！我们要坐在这里让音乐之声，潜入我们的耳内。”我不清楚他们的诗篇与音乐是否与蟋蟀的歌声相似，在某种程度上可以算做月的声音。想到这些，城市生活带给我的昏乱心绪，便在夜的宁静中消失了。
恋人和诗人在夜里能寻找到更深奥的生活意义。其实，我们都爱问一些深奥的问题——关于我们的祖先、我们的命运。我们只想纵容这些永远找不到答案的谜团，不喜欢那些主导着白天世界的、没有情感的几何教科书。在夜里，我们都成为哲学家和神秘家。
当月亮升起之时，我们放慢思想，让它追随天堂的脚步。不经意间，一种魔力就会遍布全身。我们会敞开情感之门，让白天被理智束缚的那部分思绪自由奔涌。我们能跨越遥远的时空，听远古猎人的细语，看久远时代恋人与诗人们眼中的世界。
月圆月缺，总是牵挂着我们的心绪。当月亮升起之时，我们放慢思想，让它追随天堂的脚步。
There is a hill near my home that I often climb at night. The noise of the city is a far-off murmur. In the hush of dark I share the cheerfulness of crickets and the confidence of owls. But it is the drama of the moonrise that I come to see. For that restores in me a quiet and clarity that the city spends too freely.
From this hill I have watched many moons rise. Each one had its own mood. There have been broad, confident harvest moons in autumn; shy, misty moons in spring; lonely, winter moons rising into the utter silence of an ink-black sky and smoke-smudged orange moons over the dry fields of summer. Each, like fine music, excited my heart and then calmed my soul.
Moon gazing is an ancient art. To prehistoric hunters the moon overhead was as unerring as heartbeat. They knew that every 29 days it become full-bellied and brilliant, then sickened and died, and then was reborn. They knew the waxing moon appeared larger and higher overhead after each succeeding sunset. They knew the waning moon rose later each night until it vanished in the sunrise. To have understood the moon’ s patterns from experience must been a profound thing.
But we, who live indoors, have lost contact with the moon. The glare of street lights and the dust of pollution veil the night sky. Though men have walked on the moon, it grows less familiar. Few of us can say when the moon will rise tonight.
Still, it tugs at our minds. If we unexpectedly encounter the full moon, huge and yellow over the horizon, we are helpless but to stare back at its commanding presence. And the moon has gifts to bestow upon those who watch.
I learned about its gifts one July evening in the mountains. My car had mysteriously stalled, and I was stranded and alone. The sun had set, and I was watching what seemed to be the bright-orange glow of a forest fire beyond a ridge to the east. Suddenly, the ridge itself seemed to burst into flame. Then, the rising moon, huge and red and grotesquely mishappen by the dust and sweat of the summer atmosphere, loomed up out of the woods.
Distorted thus by the hot breath of earth, the moon seemed ill-tempered and imperfect. Dogs at nearby farmhouses barked nervously, as if this strange light had wakened evil spirits in the weeds.
But as the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose, the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of the horizon, full chested and round and the color of ivory, the valleys were deep shadows in the landscape. The dogs, reassured that this was the familiar moon, stopped barking. And all at once I felt a confidence and joy close to laughter.
The drama took an hour. Moonrise is slow and serried with subtleties. To watch it, we must slip into an older, more patient sense of time. To watch the moon move inexorably higher is to find an unusual stillness within ourselves. Our imaginations become aware of the vast distances of space, the immensity of the earth and huge improbability of our own existence. We feel small but privileged.
Moonlight shows us none of life’ s harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery, the oceans still and blue in its light. In moonlight we become less calculating, more drawn to our feelings.
And odd things happen in such moments. On that July night, I watched the moon for an hour or two, and then got back into the car, turned the key in the ignition and heard the engine start, just as mysteriously as it had stalled a few hours earlier. I drove down from the mountains with the moon on my shoulder and peace in my heart.
I return often to the rising moon. I am draw especially when events crowd ease and clarity of vision into a small corner of my life. This happens often in the fall. Then I go to my hill and await the hunter’s moon, enormous and gold over the horizon, filling, the night with vision.
An owl swoops from the ridge top, noiseless but bright as flame. A cricket shrills in the grass. I think of poets and musicians. Of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and of Shakespeare, whose Lorenzo declaims in The Merchant of Venice, “How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! /Here will we sit and let the sounds of music/Creep in our ears.” I wonder if their verse and music, like the music of crickets, are in some way voices of the moon. With such thoughts, my citified confusions melt into the quiet of the night.
Lovers and poets find deeper meaning at night. We are all apt to pose deeper questions—about our origins and destinies. We indulge in riddles, rather than in the impersonal geometries that govern the daylight world. We become philosophers and mystics.
At moonrise, as we slow our minds to the pace of the heavens, enchantment steals over us. We open the vents of feeling and exercise parts of our minds that reason locks away by day. We hear, across the distances, murmurs of ancient hunter and see anew the visions of poets and lovers of long ago.
