Supermoon

Modern times seem to have silenced a particular intimacy between man and the moon. When the supermoon rose, immense and silent over Israel, I felt that it wasn’t just closer to the Earth; it was closer to me, demanding an account. It wasn’t merely a cosmic spectacle but a presence that, without words, asked what we had done with the time given to us.

In the old days, men would stop when the moon appeared like this. They’d sit around a fire and tell stories in the silence that the light imposed. They weren’t stories to pass the time but reflections of what they carried within. Today, we’re always too tired and constantly too distracted. We’ve lost these opportunities to meet what is eternal, to encounter what doesn’t depend on us.

That night, I, too, should have been present and vigilant, but my body won. The twelve-hour shift weighed on my back and legs in the silence of my bones. I took a pill to sleep and another to forget the weight of the days, diving into a sleep I did not question. Sleeping was an abandonment I chose without regret.

I woke up to Caju’s touch, my faithful friend, licking my foot as if calling someone back to life. For a moment, I wasn’t sure where I was, as if I had crossed a place where time no longer mattered. Outside, the supermoon continued its duty. It didn’t wait, didn’t complain; it simply illuminated what needed to be seen. It was there, as it always had been, but I, who should have been awake, wasn’t. I had been left behind.

I saw its soft light through the window, a lantern in the vast dark. And I wondered how the ancients would never have missed a night like this. With that quiet wisdom from centuries, they knew that it was necessary to be awake under a moon like this. They knew that in moments like these, the world reveals itself, and to lose these hours is to lose something irretrievable. And I, who had surrendered to exhaustion, was a fool.

They say the supermoon is an illusion, a trick of perspective. But I know it descends a little more each time as if leaning down to whisper what we’ve let slip by. It doesn’t need to speak to make us feel small before all we haven’t lived. And that night, I realized that the moon, like me, had a job: to be present. But unlike me, it never fails.

I lay back down, but sleep wouldn’t come. I knew that next time, I’d have to be wide awake, sharing the vigil with the moon. Because the moon, patient and constant, always comes back. But we, fragile as we are, don’t always get another chance.