The Old Blog in the Desert

When I was a boy, and it fell to me to tramp out in the evening and swing open the gates for the milk cows, I kept one eye on the herd and the other on the sky. If the moon came up red as a ripe berry, we called it a strawberry moon.

It sounded friendly and suggested pie.

Not once, not in all my gate-swinging, cow-persuading youth, did I hear a soul accuse that moon of being made of blood. The very idea would have startled the livestock.

Now, I discover that a red moon is called a blood moon. Blood!

It sounds less like something you admire and more like something you report to the authorities. A strawberry invites sugar and cream; blood invites a sermon and possibly a headline.

So I am left to puzzle it out. Either I learnt a gross astronomical misunderstanding, or the world has taken to renaming perfectly decent things to make them sound like the final chapter of Revelation.

For my part, I prefer the berry. It is hard to be afraid of a dessert.

And if the moon insists on blushing now and then, I see no cause to accuse it of violence. It has kept the tides in line and the cows reasonably punctual for generations.

That is character enough for any celestial body.

This progress consists mainly of improving our vocabulary of alarm. I shall stick with strawberries, as they make better pie, and trouble no man’s sleep.