Outback

I was grown before I knew the moon
waxed and waned that way,
waxed in a D and waned in a C.
Since no one ever showed me,
I showed my children, probably
from the first time we looked at the night sky.

Though you might have known this scientifically,
sometimes you have to go to the other side of the world,
travel through the outback, feeling small again
and far away, before you discover the moon
waxes and wanes somewhere else
in the opposite way.

—Diane Thiel

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