lunar maria and a cluster of drought dreams

Let’s start primordial, billions of years ago, when the solar system came to be. There was a nursery incubating stars, maybe part of it collapsed and suns were born. Ours drifted. And pieces of dust tagged along, revolving, clumping into planets, smashing, slowly settling. Earth rolled, earth bubbled igneous, volatile and bombarded. Something big crashed, chunks flew.

Then, there was moon.

Young moon hung around, swaddled within earth’s orbit. Like earth, moon was molten and, as asteroids banged into it, craters pocked the rock. Magma filled them, magma cooled. Moon grew mottled with basalt plains.

On earth, chaos unspooled into compounds then molecules, proteins then life, and eventually humans. Who looked up to the sky. Perceived moon. And saw its seas.

Lunar maria or moon seas. Individual seas were named, the names stayed even as the waters faded into scientific real. And now in this time, a time of drought, the moon seas offer refuge, dark cool waters and silver-shine shores. A place for the thirsty to travel, the wilted to bloom, the dry to find some wet.

mare imbrium

out in the yellowed meadow
jackalopes graze on globe mallow

(open orange upturned mouths
goblets gape & the sky a sea
 	of slated awaited splatters)
twitchy for wind to cool long ears
or billow them up to the moon
    (that sea of showers)

mare humorum

water witch with a stick waiting for
	the pull, that gravity tug, tugging
		 siren song summoning to sea

as dry deer spill from dawn
      hooves in the bruised dirt
dewclaws scent buckets of old
     rain— nose to a rose of water— they

 stream-slope     surf-sky     swell-moon
spring to a sea of moisture

mare cognitum

what people do: tread with big boots not noticing the ground
proclaiming now this is known
raven lights on a silvered snag and caws out
report from
     seen smelled felt reckoned heard ultraviolet’d magnetized
 world
                — worlds more —
then wings up
        to wade waves
                 a moony tide
                     this sea which has become known

mare marginis

do rounds have rims
everything edgeless
not like dusk, mauve 
swoops off the lip  
cliff into black  
shadow long-legged ghoul
thing not a thing     thing without hem
unpeels from matter
from clay and sage ground
        and spider-climbs sky
moon incubates  
on the far side  
as phoebes flit on trees  
and tilt to the darkening  
follow fat-furred moths  
trace past
the kármán line — the lunar limb
finally a brim
a sea of the edge

mare nubium

june crumbs like a dry husk
{pre-nectarian/starved of dampy sap}
no songing open overripe symphony
{might darken might shred might stare down at parched land to plan}

but they peep over the ridge
{broods of heaped fluff fledglings}
and at night sleep in flocks inside a moon/nest sea
{sea of clouds}

Frills and Founts

Mare Ibrium, Latin for sea of showers. On moon, it is a large open basin, maybe a bit like the grasslands that sprawl on earth and across eastern New Mexico. A place for drought-tolerant globe mallow to bloom orange flowers even when rains don’t come. Jackrabbits bound and still through these meadows, their large ears cooling their bodies, blood vessels widening so blood circulates more, vasodilation. Jackalopes, mythical creatures who are a cross between jackrabbits and antelopes, are also well-suited to thrive even in dry heat.

Mare Humorum, Latin for sea of moisture. On moon, Mare Humorum’s thick lava and underground mass affects moon’s gravity. An area with some pull. And on earth too, there are things underground that can pull. Water dowsing is a traditional way to find water, the dowser holds a stick which yanks downward when water is below surface. Mule deer, common across New Mexico, have their own water-detectors, a powerful sense of smell, which can help them find food and water from miles away. These deer usually get enough water from plants, but during especially hot or dry conditions will also seek out other water sources.

Mare Cognitum, Latin for the known sea. On moon, this sea was unknown until it wasn’t. Humans landed Ranger 7 and then the Apollo 12 mission here. Humans learn by arriving. Ravens, common in New Mexico, can perceive the world in so many ways, seeing ultraviolet light through tetrachromatic vision, and possibly even magnetoreception, sensing the earth’s magnetic field. Ravens are thought to be one of the smartest animals, using tools, solving problems, remembering things and planning ahead.

Mare Marginis, Latin for sea of the edge. On moon, this sea lurks on the edge of what is seen from earth. Existence is filled with edges and borders. There is a boundary, an imaginary line, between earth’s atmosphere and space: the kármán line; there is dusk, that border between day and night when Phoebes, small insect-eating birds in New Mexico, chase moths; there is the lunar limb, the name for that moon rim where moon rounds over to the dark or unseen side; and there are shadows, who grow longer as sun sinks toward the horizon, shadows, with edges that blur between being and not being.

Mare Nubium, Latin for sea of clouds. On moon, this sea lies in the southeast and was formed 4.5-3.9 billion years ago, a lunar period known as pre-nectarian. On earth in the American Southwest, there is also a pre period, a time before the annual monsoon storms make their way inland from the warm Pacific ocean. New Mexico typically receives about half its annual precipitation during monsoon season. In the weeks leading up to the rains, clouds begin to build and billow, not yet storming, just prep forming, in the otherwise blue sky.

* * *

Information and images of the moon seas came from https://www.nasa.gov and

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/lunar-maria-guide-list-seas-moon

Information on flora and fauna of New Mexico came from https://peecnature.org/animals/ and https://birdwatchinghq.com/

Various other web sources were consulted to teach me more about the creation of the solar system, water dowsing, astronomy, space exploration, jackalopes, how to draw ghouls and, of course, the moon. Other than the moon images, all drawings, puffed paint and construction paper cut-outs were done by me.

Artist’s statement

Several months ago while lesson planning I came across the name lunar maria which led to my own space and moon exploration and learning about the seas of the moon.The beauty of the individual sea names inspired me to write a series of poems in response to the moon seas, the drought conditions in the Southwest, my own personal longing for moisture and a sea-side vacation and my appreciation for astronomy, local ecology, botany, meteorology, and all sorts of sciencey things. Then I added some fun moon art in too.