Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Preparing for the the Moon Festival!

from Round is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes

This year the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival falls on Sept. 27th! As I've said before, the Moon Festival is one my favorite holidays.  Now that I don't live in the city anymore, I can't just go pick up some mooncakes in Chinatown, which makes me feel a little sad. But I'm still going to celebrate!

Many of my books, from Thanking the Moon to Starry River of the Sky deal with Chinese moon myths. I have oodles of activity suggestions to help celebrate it! I even started a Moon Festival Activities Pinterest board as well as a Book list board in honor of the holiday!

The Moon Festival is basically a Chinese version of thanksgiving, centered around the moon. One  big tradition of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is to share poetry--either ones you love or ones you, yourself, write!

Me, personally, I've always thought of myself as more of a poetry-hack so I've always been a bit hesitant to share my poems. But over a year ago, my friend Janet Wong encouraged me to participate in her Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations and so I submitted one of my Moon Festival poems.

And, in honor of the upcoming Moon Festival I share it with you now:


On the Moon Festival

I am allowed to play
Outside tonight
Climb and slide and 
SWING
Higher 
Higher
I will knock on the moon
And the Moon Lady will say
Yes, tonight
The rabbit can come out to play


(Note: On the night of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, people send the Moon Goddess or Moon Lady a secret wish in hopes that she will grant it. The Moon Lady's companion is the Jade Rabbit. Read more here.)