The Setting Moon

Last night I couldn’t sleep. I am not sure what time it was, but I was sitting on my bed feeling pretty bored, and since I wasn’t going t fall asleep anytime soon I went to entertain myself up to the roof. I put on a sweater, grabbed my water bottle, and headed up there. Though Haiti is a tropical island, nights can be quite chilly, and I hoped that maybe some fresh air could get me to go to sleep. I got up there and immediately my eyes were drawn to the west where to moon was setting. I’ve seen the moon set before at home but there was something different about this. Nothing specific was new, and yet the scenery was a spectacular that I had never experienced. 

Usually the moon is bright white, almost like an LED light suspended in the sky, but it had a deep yellow glow to it as it sat low in the western sky. Though the tint was darker, the moon was more luminous than I had ever seen. Everything around me was as visible as if the sun were setting; the only difference being that the sky was a dark navy instead of purple and red. The moon was about three quarters full, giving off light but looking incomplete as it set. It almost looked like a block of newly formed cheese shining in the night sky. I know that metaphor is over used, but I’ve never seen anything that looked more like cheese than last night’s moon. (To note, this might also reflect my level of hunger at the time)

Aside from a few trucks driving by, the night was almost perfectly undisturbed. The natural surroundings sang loudly, with the roosters belting out a consistent melody, and the goats and cows humming different notes in perfect harmony. As a backdrop to mammalian instrumentals, there were the thousands of crickets chirping in unison, and combined with the wind rustling through the trees, perfectly wrapped up each part into one beautiful song. The wind kept the air nice and cool, making for a particular comfortable environment to enjoy this.

Opposite the moon setting in the west were the mountains in the east. The mountains almost looked like something from a Wan Gogh painting. All I could make out was their deep amethyst contour against the navy blue night sky, but they had a presence about them that seemed to frame the entire scene beautifully. The clouds met them in some places and looked almost as if they were using the mountains as a runway to take off into the sky. With the wind blowing through the trees and clouds whipping up the mountains, the earth and sky almost blended together as one beautiful backdrop to the night. As the moon set deeper into the west, a deep navy ring began to grow in at the bottom of the sky in the east. At first it looked like a large cloud, but it grew larger and larger as the moon continued to set. I started to see stars shine brightly though, and then I turned to see that the moon was half hidden by the hill in the west. The navy blue sky that was emerging was no cloud, but the shadow of the hill the moon was setting behind. As the moon said its final good byes for the night, the night magically lit up with stars. Thousands of stars began to twinkle that had kept hidden behind the moon’s yellow glow. Though the moon was gone, the stars started to shine just as brightly, keeping the night sky perfectly lit.

I can write illustrative descriptions all night long and only convey a glimpse of the magic that I saw and felt last night. I’ve never been more captivated by a night sky; I was absolutely mesmerized by everything around me. From the animals singing in the night to the dramatic moon finding its resting place in the west, to the wind turning Haiti’s hot days into a perfectly temperate nights, everything seemed to fit together perfectly in nature’s tapestry. As amazed as I felt, I felt even more humbled. Here I was, just one lowly human being, able to enjoy this great spectacle taking place around me. I didn’t do anything to create this, I just happened to get up when nature was performing one of the most dramatic scenes from its daily play. Maybe it was chance, maybe it was destiny, but nature’s play conveyed beauty words can only wish to describe.