“A liquid moon”

Winter Trees William Carlos Williams
All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.                                                                           

What of the moon can be said to be liquid? Not the rock itself, but rather its light, which flows from surface to reflective surface (or from branch to branch).

This reminds me that we only know of the moon as reflected light — save for a few of us who have actually gone and touched the darned thing. The moon can appear huge or small, white or orange, but all this is really a trick of the light, which over time flows into various shapes and colors.

And that reminds me that literally all that we see is only reflected light, and is liquid in that same sense. Some things we touch most things that we know, for most of us, we know through seeing (or our other liquid senses — smelling, hearing). The entire visual world itself is liquid as well, in this sense, and all these images and reflections flow like the moon does. The “wise trees” tell us this truth, about the flowing nature of our perceptive worlds — that’s my read, at least. Your’s?