Under a Supermoon

Photo-illustration of black-and-white closeup image of moon with craters next to black-and-white image of a leaf's veins.
Photo-illustration by Liz Hart / The Atlantic. Sources: Futuras Fotos / Alamy; Ironrodart / Getty.
Photo-illustration of black-and-white closeup image of moon with craters next to black-and-white image of a leaf's veins.
Listen1.0x
Magazine Cover image

Explore the July 2025 Issue

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

View More

Gazing at a supermoon when a portion of Earth’s shadow
      slides across the lunar surface,

I have no desire to twirl in space on an oxygenating cord;
      I have no desire to plunge

to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and observe snailfish.
      On the highway, someone

is driving to lab, to pueblo, to abandoned uranium mine
      and is always driving farther,

driving faster. I slow it down and rejoice in minutiae:
      a gold flare in cottonwood leaves,

the smell of split piñon and juniper in a garage,
      and recall Blake’s

if the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
      I don’t know that I am any wiser,

but I have persevered; as I gaze at the darkening craters
      and smell apples on branches

and on grass, I catch how this life has exploding, exploded,
      and birthing stars inside it.


This poem appears in the July 2025 print edition.