Blue Moon
She wears the trailing tint
of a blue moon
her arms covered
in blue sleeves
her skin grazed by
flying dust you see
if you look closely
at her face
even in the pale light
of a sad sun
to this hour, this descent
into neither day nor night
she surrenders
unwilling to fight.
Once in a Blue Moon -- Josephine Wall
She wears the trailing tint
of a blue moon
her arms covered
in blue sleeves
her skin grazed by
flying dust you see
if you look closely
at her face
even in the pale light
of a sad sun
to this hour, this descent
into neither day nor night
she surrenders
unwilling to fight.
Once in a Blue Moon -- Josephine Wall
A blue moon may actually be a lunar phenomenon in which the orb appears bluish due to smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere, but the phrase usually has nothing to do with color. The oldest meaning (at least 400 years ago) indicated that something was too absurd to believe. But over time it evolved from "never" to "rarely": a blue moon was the 3rd full moon in a season that has 4 of them. (Seasons normally only have 3.) If a year has 13 full moons instead of the usual 12, the 13th is generally nameless (the others may be referred to as the Harvest moon or the Paschal moon, for instance) so that the other dozen can keep their rightful place in relation to the solstices and equinoxes. Today, a blue moon is usually regarded as a 2nd full moon within a single calendar month. This meaning developed when amateur astronomer James Hugh Pruett, the Pacific Coast director for the American Meteor Society, misunderstood the term in an article he published in "Sky & Telescope" in 1946. The article was cited on a StarDate radio program in 1980 and then became canonical when it appeared as an answer in a 1986 version of the popular board game "Trivial Pursuit." In an astrological sense a blue moon amplifies the effect of its respective zodiac phase.
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