esme alice mackey

Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

Came across this book when I read the short story, The Distance of the Moon:

"At one time, according to Sir George H. Darwin, the Moon was very close to the Earth. Then the tides gradually pushed her far away: the tides that the Moon herself causes in the Earth’s waters, where the Earth slowly loses energy.

...Moon’s phases worked in a different way then: because the distances from the Sun were different, and the orbits, and the angle of something or other, I forget what; as for eclipses, with Earth and Moon stuck together the way they were, why, we had eclipses every minute: naturally, those two big monsters managed to put each other in the shade constantly, first one, then the other.  

Climb up on the Moon? Of course we did. All you had to do was row out to it in a boat and, when you were underneath it, prop a ladder against her and scramble up.

Now, you will ask me what in the world we went up on the Moon for; I’ll explain it to you. We went to collect the milk, with a big spoon and a bucket. Moon-milk was very thick, like a kind of cream cheese.  

Transparent medusas rose to the sea’s surface, throbbed there a moment, then flew off, swaying towards the Moon.

I saw her become restless, as if on pins and needles, and then it was all clear to me, how Mrs Vhd Vhd was becoming jealous of the Moon and I was jealous of my cousin.

I took to singing in a low voice that sad song that goes: ‘Every shiny fish is floating, floating; and every dark fish is at the bottom, at the bottom of the sea...’ and all the others, except my cousin, echoed my words.

raised my eyes as I did every time I touched the Moon’s crust, sure that I would see above me the native sea like an endless ceiling, and I saw it, yes, I saw it this time, too, but much higher, and much more narrow, bound by its borders of coasts and cliffs and promontories, and how small the boats seemed, and how unfamiliar my friend’s faces and how weak their cries!

.,..she too would remain distant, on the Moon. I sense this, seeing that she didn’t take a step towards the bamboo pole, but simply turned her harp towards the Earth, high in the sky, and plucked the strings. 

 I could distinguish the shape of her bosom, her arms, her thighs, just as I remember them now, just as now, when the Moon has become that flat, remote circle, I still look for her as soon as the first sliver appears in the sky, and the more it waxes, the more clearly I imagine I can see her, her or something of her, but only her, in a hundred, a thousand different vistas, she who makes the Moon the Moon and, whenever she is full, sets the dogs to howling all night long, and me with them."

Link for text here