13 Moons Diary

09/10/2026

New Moon September 10, 2026

The fragment of the earth that is now me is only on its way through me. It is on its way from having been a tree, a school of fish, a terrapin, a flock of birds. It will pass through all those forms again.
- Wendell Berry

Image: Saoud Abdallah, Girl 1 2017

08/27/2026

Full Moon / Lunar Eclipse August 27, 2026

Blood Moon
By Elizabeth Jacobson

People are made of paper, love affairs, 

             anything that tears easily. 
 A pregnant woman stands under the lunar eclipse,  
              carves a swirl into a tree, 
 her baby is born with this same mark on his thigh. 
 It’s just like the earth to come between the sun and the moon  
              and cause this kind of mystery. 

Point at a rainbow, and it will plummet and slice your finger off. 
Use your lips instead, to show others what you are looking at. 
Don’t stand on high rocks or they will push you into the sky, 

           and you will be pressed like a flower in a book. 
People are made from rain showers, hatred, smears of spit, 
             anything that might evaporate instantly. 
That night, the moon was a true blood red,  
not the pale rust of this moon, this morning. 

             An entire human body coated red with blood,  
                except where a path of tears washed through. 
Don’t stare at the moon  

          or it will follow you persistently like a stray cat you have fed. 
Don’t hold out your hands when the sun is shining,  
           or you will burn continually with possibility. 
People are made of buckets of sand, sequins of clay, desire,  
           anything that washes away easily. 
Don’t inhale too deeply, the scent of fallen leaves  
pasted to the forest floor after a fresh rain, 
            or you will be repeatedly stepped on. 
Don’t count the seeds in a mound of bear scat  
            or just as many clouds will split open above your head. 

Image: Awaiting the Blood Moon, unknown

08/12/2026

New Moon / Eclipse August 12, 2026

August
By Frederico Garcia Lorca

Facing the sunset
peaches and sugar,
and the sun inside the evening
like the stone in a fruit.

The ear of corn holds intact
its hard yellow laughter.

August.
Children eat
dark bread and tasty moon.

Image: unknown

07/29/2026

Full Moon July 29, 2026

You Begin
By Margaret Atwood

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

Photo: Orcas Moon

07/14/2026

New Moon July 14, 2026

July
By Linda Pastan

Tonight the fireflies
light their brief
candles
in all the trees

of summer-
color of moonflakes,
color of fluorescent
lace

where the ocean drags
its torn hem
over the dark
sand.

Image: unknown

06/29/2026

Full Moon June 29, 2026

Some Dreams Hang in the Air
by Lucille Clifton

some dreams hang in the air
like smoke. Some dreams
get all in your clothes and
be wearing them more than you do and
you be half the time trying to
hold them and half the time
trying to wave them away.
their smell be all over you and
they get to your eyes and
you cry. the fire be gone
and the wood but some dreams
hang in the air like smoke
touching everything
Image: artist unknown

06/15/2026

New Moon June 14th 2026

To Begin With, the Sweet Grass
By Mary Oliver

The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you, my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.

It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life-just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

Image: Tehos art

05/31/2026

Full Moon May 31st, 2026

Untitled
By Joy Harjo

Either a snail’s moist web
of moonlight, or someone’s
hot breath at four a.m.
when the night has been
too much, has eaten
you whole.
This is my life.
It has been
sifted through the bones
of my body, through
blood.
It is all that
I have.

Image: Shoichi Ida

04/17/2026

New Moon April 17, 2026

Within This Tree
By Jane Hirshfield

Within this tree
another tree
inhabits the same body:
within this stone
another stone rests,
its many shades of grey
the same,
its identical
surface and weight.
And within my body,
another body,
whose history, waiting,
sings: there is no other body,
it sings,
there is no other world.

Image: artist unknown

04/07/2026