In a Zoom session two weeks before Christmas, several of the Church Mice Writers reported having had a difficult week one way or another.  Writing in the half-dark of the winter afternoon, their heads bowed on the screen before me as they scribbled away, I suddenly wondered whether it might be anything to do with astrology – the way the planets and the moon were interacting.  A quick Google told me the moon was in a gibbous phase and though I didn’t know what that meant, I scribbled down phrases from the search results that popped out at me, working them quickly into a rough poem.

The moon’s long past its ‘gibbous’ stage now and, indeed, both the Winter Solstice and Christmas have passed, too. But having tidied the poem up this morning, I thought I’d share it here.

December Moon

A waxing gibbous moon;
egg shaped intermediate phase
of illumination; fifty percent;
the sun lights more than half
its visible surface and growing
by the night till it is whole
and bright.

A time when people strive
to get their projects done
just as the moon strives
to become full; a symbol
of the final push and thus 
the hardest of this winter
month for some.

But strive we must, for just around
the corner there is light; just around
the corner the shortness of days turns
on a pin and we begin the slow climb
back to friends and kin; to time
outdoors; to drawn-out days of love,
sunshine, happiness and hope.