We start a fire and then I’m hit with the sudden thought reminder that it is full moon tonight. We head out towards the river through the narrow laneway, and as the path opens up suddenly there it is, big and bold and yellow between clouds on the horizon, its reflection lighting up a rippled line along the river. Above, between the clouds right at this moment is Jupiter, then Saturn higher, and then a very bright Venus to the west. The belt of Orion still off to the right.
Category Archives: Sky Poetics
Full Moon Summer Rain
Today preceded by alto clouds like snakeskins, predicting rain. In the morning my wife and I head out, grey skies to the west. “It said it was going to rain today,” she says. We look at her weather app. The image says rain. The words say no rain. The clouds look dark. We walk on, and before we get to where we’re going there is the very lightest misty spray, and then it is over. “Unusual for this time of year,” she says. Only later that night do I remember the full moon.
Stars in a Line
Saturday night evening walk, and we’re out by the cliffs near the river. I look to the west and see the bright light of Venus. I look higher to the east and see an-almost-half Moon that was below Venus at sunset a mere couple of days ago; it points to the Sun. Then to the east I see two satellites heading further east and disappearing, then another heading a different way. Nearby is the bright shining gloss of Jupiter. And above, higher in the sky, in a line between Jupiter and the Moon, is the smaller reddy-blue of Saturn. All of them in a line—Venus, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter—with the three stars of Orion’s belt off to the side.
New Moon Rain Again
December, and usually blue skies and predictable winds on Whadjuk country. But today there is cold wind and nimbus and rain. And I can’t help noticing that it is also new moon today—with rain, again.
Wind
A wind has sprung up overnight and blows strong, fast and slightly cold throughout the whole day. We take a walk along the beach into it—sand flies everywhere. No sandflies. It is one of the strongest winds I can remember, especially for this time of year. The following day I look at the weather maps. I see that a tropical low/monsoon trough coming down from the equator joined with a cold-front low blowing up from the southern ocean (followed by a high pressure system). This would have created the conditions necessary for extra wind to blow up from the south, and that’s exactly what happened. Nephew points out that it’s interesting this wind happened at the same time as storms in the UK, and wonders if they are connected. But my reference maps don’t stretch that far.
Kaa Kaa
Sunday morning walk, and at one spot by the edge of a road is a collection of bird droppings—I usually look up to see if anything is sitting there. Today again there is nothing, but slightly along the power line is a kookaburra with something in its mouth. Unusually, though, he looks a little lop sided—all his tail feathers are missing. I tell my nephew and he asks if it was other kookaburras. “Don’t know,” I reply. “Crows maybe. Even djiddy djiddy the wagtail.” But really you never know unless you see it for yourself.
The Moment it Turns
Out walking before the rain and maybe storm. I start to walk one way because the wind is from the south west—ripples on the river point the way. But then the wind dies suddenly, and the river is calm. There are two or three dolphins in the shallows of the sandbar, with not enough water to fully dive; they stream across it like sharks, and double back in strange directions at times, likely hunting fish. The whole scene is metallic and grey. I decide to turn and walk downriver now that it’s calmer. Rain starts to fall in fat, slow drops. I hear the sound of a pied oyster catcher somewhere on the river. And then the sound of a black faced cuckooshrike up ahead, all shrill and high; I spy him at the top of a tree, looking down. The rain increases. I swing back for home. The rain stays, but slow, and I’m still not that wet when I arrive. I head out again soon after with my wife when she gets home, and notice that now the wind has swung fully to the north, now blowing in gusts. Then out of the wind and rain appears our nephew, fresh and wet from the beach, smiling. We walk on, together, for a moment, but the umbrellas are no match for the sideways rain.
Flying Kite
Sunday evening, with a wind that has been offshore all day, Katie and I walk over to the pedestrian bridge above the trainline and watch the sunset. Also there, though not watching the sunset but the ground below us, is a black shouldered kite. He flies past us, hovers, head to the wind, looking straight down, flapping though otherwise perfectly still; then dropping hovering, flapping, dropping. His wings are white against the setting sun, but for his shoulders clearly dark.
He drops to the earth as the sun does, and as we turn for indoors.
Moon and Wind and Clouds
Almost-full-moon day, two days after perigee, is very windy from the south, with a blanket of stratus clouds; the wind is cold. Then a few hours after the moon has passed full, and almost reached peak north, the wind turns south east, still strong, with alto clouds. The next day the wind stays south east and warm all day. The next day the wind is easterly with clearer skies in the morning, turning grey later as the moon reaches peak north or, from our perspective, descends towards the earth.
The next days there are clouds, rain, northerly then north westerly winds; a tropical low reaches down from the north—from the equator.
Close Call Moon
Walking in the evening up along the limestone cliffs, and the moon is almost full, but not quite—about two days to go. It therefore rises a bit before sunset, so Fin and I see it up above the eastern horizon, grey and weighty. “Is that a super moon?” he asks. I contemplate what a super moon actually is; it is nothing if not a perigee moon—the closest it will get to Earth for the month. It does look big. I later consult a calendar and see that each month’s perigee throughout this year is around 356,000 to 369,000km from the Earth—except for this month’s, which is 306,109km, give or take a metre.
John Stubley 