the moon stands motionless in the window
— shh!
don’t scare him away!
Written on October 9, 2024, by Lenny Löwenstern. Visualized with artificial intelligence using DALL·E and Microsoft Designer. The poem has no title. It doesn’t need one. Here is a variation …
the moon
motionless in the window
— shh! don’t scare him away
The poem radiates a quiet, nighttime mood. A moment so beautiful that even the slightest carelessness could ruin it. There’s a sense of worry—even though it’s clear that the moon won’t react. He isn’t a shy deer. Still, he disappears after a few hours. That’s the time he gives himself.
How fast is the moon, anyway?
The moon’s movement across the sky is clearly visible to us, yet we don’t perceive it as motion. Still, it travels surprisingly fast. You can notice this easily if you watch the moon rise over a mountain ridge or a rooftop. It’s similar to the minute hand of a clock: at first, nothing seems to change, but before long, the shift becomes unmistakable.
In winter, the full moon stands particularly high in the sky because it mirrors the position of the summer sun. In summer, it stays lower, reflecting the winter sun’s path. This affects how long the moon remains visible. Generally, the full moon can be seen throughout the entire night—if the weather allows. But that applies only to the full moon.
For us to consciously perceive the moon’s movement with the naked eye, it would need to move about thirty times faster than it does now—roughly 30 kilometers per second instead of just 1. That would correspond to a speed of about 0.5 degrees per minute in the sky. At such a pace, we could track the moon’s movement directly, like we do with an airplane or the International Space Station.
Since that’s not the case, we observe our companion of the night more like a painting. What we see are moments—snapshots—of a slow, continuous journey.