Kay Ryan, "Shoot the Moon"

Kay Ryan's "Shoot the Moon" is a tough poem. Not because it uses complicated language (it doesn't), nor because it depends on a particularly difficult concept. No, it's just tough. There are things I don't want to think about, and one has to do with the shakiness of possibilities. Look at how that's expressed at the opening: "To do it at all / we must do it / too soon."

Shoot the Moon
Kay Ryan

To do it at all
we must do it
too soon: shoot
before the moon
to shoot the moon,
we learn, having
shot it dead,
bagged now and
heavy as a head.

I'm staring at that "To do it at all." Ryan isn't talking about success being rushed, that maybe even our better moments arise from accidents. I should stop at this point and talk about how this is an idea I've recently leveraged. A number of those I've met worry about being all talk and no action. They've seen so many say too much and do absolutely nothing. What if they unknowingly promise more than they can deliver? For them, I've been discussing situations where overpromising, trying more, and realizing larger gains occur all at once. Good things can be had through imperfect means.

"To do it at all," though, is a phrase which speaks to possibilities. We're not talking about material gains or acknowledged successes, necessarily. We're talking about realizing what a chance we have in the first place. That chance requires a rushed, instinctive, messy action. You've got to shoot the moon. "[S]hoot before the moon / to shoot the moon." This does not lead to the most satisfying conclusion! "[W]e learn, having / shot it dead, / bagged now and / heavy as a head." Not only are no goods had, it isn't clear anything is learned, and Ryan leaves us with the taste of a killer who has created the conditions of their own abandonment.

Contrast this with Dickinson's immortal lines on possibility:

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –

No moon has been hunted and shot in Dickinson's vision. There are visitors, there is paradise to gather. Why is this so different? "Shoot the Moon" asks for possibilities to coincide with the means to success; Dickinson is merely happy there are possibilities. Conventionally, we have based our world around shooting the moon. Lots of kids think they are winners only if they win all the time. The idea of playing a game so everyone at the table is happy seems like a joke. That's a moral problem, but it is accompanied by a less obvious issue. In order to see how possibility works, you do have to try. Shooting the moon can be less an act of hubris and more an attempt at knowing. This is not a fun thought.

I want to conclude by noting how Ryan lets "we learn" hang. It has no object; it feels like we learn nothing; we are left holding death at the end of the poem. I do believe there's a positive interpretation worth considering. After all, we didn't know how to learn before. We didn't know how to work with loss. I'm thinking about someone now who cannot stand to be thought of negatively. They insist on being loved by everyone, and everyone must feel exactly how they dictate. I don't know how to explain to them that loss is learning. You only realize what matters when you recognize its independence. Shooting the moon itself means nothing. What were we trying for, again?