NaPoWriMo 2025 (April 2nd): To the Moon, I Guess

From NaPoWriMo 2025: And now for our daily prompt – optional, as always. Anne Carson is a Canadian poet and essayist known for her contemporary translations of Sappho and other ancient Greek writers. For example, consider this version of Sappho’s Fragment 58, to which Carson has added a modern song-title, enhancing the strange, time-defying quality of the translation. And just as many songs do, the poem directly addresses a person or group – in this case, the Muses. Taking Carson’s translation as an example, we challenge you to write a poem that directly addresses someone, and that includes a made-up word, an odd/unusual simile, a statement of “fact,” and something that seems out of place in time (like a Sonny & Cher song in a poem about a Greek myth).

To the Moon, I Guess

Moon, you are a glimmerous thing,
like a piece of silver that forgot it was
meant to be a coin,
tossed somewhere between two worlds,
shining and unsure,
the way I feel when I step outside
and see your face in the sky.
You, who were once a goddess in a toga,
now stuck in my playlist,
like “I Got You Babe” on a Sunday morning,
the kind of love song that gets played
while the world still sleeps.

I think you know this fact, Moon—
you have forgotten how to be human.
You don’t cry. You don’t blink.
You just hover there,
looking down at us like a mother
who no longer cares about the dishes,
but will always remind you
to wear a coat in the winter.

Tell me, Moon,
does it feel strange,
to be this old and still
so obsessed with light?
When you used to be fire,
now you’re just a reflected dream.
And yet, you glimmerous,
flickering like a lonely flame in a dark room,
still worthy of songs we don’t know how to forget.

- Oizys.

I Got You Babe, Sonny and Cher, Top of the Pops 1965