Going out late at night (for the dog), I consciously look for the moon. The full moon is hidden among dark pines; a huge silver globe is not obscure. The moon is familiar and, as part of nature, a friend, but an enigmatic, aloof, and mysterious one. As a child I was always wary of the “man on the moon” — not the one on the moon as such but the portraits and images of the anthropomorphic crescent moon man, smiling wanly, his smug gaze reminiscent of the joker in an antique deck of playing cards, or a satyr. He still intrudes on my peaceful gaze. He interrupts solitude like a childhood phantom, perhaps a projection of some buried but restless memory. Best not to contrive a pattern in moon craters and seas, best to leave the moon to its simple mystery.