What's a New Full Moon?

Through jail windows a new full moon is a round white door rendered useless by stout steel bars Frogs see a new full moon as a luminous toadstool sprouting from the black floor of a pond To the thief and the murderer it is a busy stoolpigeon tipping off cops and intended victims To a young man in love the new full moon is a priceless pearl he would tear from the sky . . . set in a ring woven from sparkling stars . . . place on the finger of his sweetheart's hand The new full moon is a beautiful woman . . . ageless . . . deathless . . . inaccessible . . . and infinitely mysteriously sad . . . who gazes in my window through a dark veil set with shimmering stars . . . the poet said "A new full moon," the scientist stated, "is a periodical phenomenon occurring when the lifeless half of our planetary satellite revolves to such a position that solar rays are reflected from the whole of its atmosphereless surface to our own stellar body . . ."