From the Rabbit in the Moon

My dearest …,

Go outside and look up and you will find me, though you may have to be told where to look first. The dark patches on the moon make a rabbit, and the rabbit is holding a pestle, and it is me, and I have been at this a very long time. Tonight I was watching one particular garden: .

Here is why I am up here, , and it is the part of the story people leave out. An old beggar asked three animals for food. A monkey brought fruit and a fox brought fish, and I had nothing at all to bring — so I offered the only thing I had, and jumped into the fire myself. The beggar turned out to be rather more than a beggar, and he set me in the moon so that nobody would forget.

I am not telling you that so you will copy me. I am telling you because I had nothing and I found something anyway. That is the part I would keep. The monkey and the fox brought what they happened to have lying about. I had to think.

Tonight your family will cut a mooncake into pieces so everyone gets some, and they will do it outside if they can, under me. The roundness is the entire point: the moon is round, the cake is round, and the people sitting round the table make the same shape.

Look up when you can,
from the one pounding away up here —

The Moon Rabbit

The Jade Rabbit · Still Working

P.S. — Somebody somewhere far away is looking at exactly the same moon tonight, at exactly the same moment. That is the real reason this festival exists, and it is worth remembering when your family is not all in the same place.