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Moon Boy by David Wilberforce


Moon Boy


I remember when I first carried you out into the night garden

To see the new moon,

A big bright jewel in the sky shining,

Like your new eyes

And as you looked in wonder and pointed.


I felt that I had begun

To ease you into knowing what you had been thrown into

To show you something of the sheer ancient size

Of this place, this life.


And each time you then caught a glimpse of its orbit

From your bedroom window or the car

You would point again in excitement – “Moon!”

One of your first words.

And we would be excited too, remembering our wonderment

At your arrival

Of being alive on this small delicate blue dot

I hadn’t even shown you the stars back then.


Now, we speak of Saturn’s rings

Galaxies

The Universe

And The Big Bang

That moment of creation

Too enormous to take in.



David Wilberforce



About David Wilberforce

"I live in Hull in the north of England (a poetic city!) I am a retired learning disability nurse and now work for myself as a psychotherapist and do some teaching and volunteering too. I write poetry when the mood strikes but I rarely share what I produce."



About this poem

"It is about the time I did take my son Jack - then about 1 or so - out in the garden to show him the moon. He is 10 in a week or so, and our conversations about life, the universe, and everything are very different now; we often speak of the miracle and mystery of life and I tried to capture something of that in the poem. The other day Jack concluded that it would be boring to live forever. I concurred."



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