For Sister Moon as she rises full tonight...
Moon Memories:
Once,
the Moon followed
me home,
I know,
because I watched her
out the back window of the car.
Occasionally slipping
behind trees or buildings
like a secret agent,
she kept up with us
effortlessly,
as I strained against
the straps of my seat
to meet her gaze.
I felt her interest
and her smile,
happy to have made
a new friend.
Once,
not afraid of the night,
but of the day
that would follow,
I was invited
by my Mother
to gaze on the Moon
outside our house,
and greet her as
Our Lady’s lamp
protecting all,
guiding all home,
wisdom
passed down
from her Father,
whom I had never met,
but always felt
I knew.
He loved the Moon too,
she said.
There is hereditary
of the heart,
as well as of the blood,
it seems.
To this day
I miss her calls
that would begin always
with
Have you seen the Moon
tonight?
For I cannot look up
at the Moon
without looking
within
too.
Once,
I spent the night
in a wood made pure
silver
by her presence,
and felt the life in every thing
stir and sing
and dance
in a wild celebration
that is hidden from
the day.
I sat stone still
and watched
Foxes play
about me
and a Badger
pass by like an ancient sage
busy on his own quest,
and I believed
in magic again
by her light.
Once,
I remember her
daytime ghost
appearing during the
long drawn out days
of dry schooling,
and seeing her
still serenity
so far above
the awfulness
of that age
made me breathe out
a breath
I did not even know
I had been holding
on to for years.
She felt like a friend
checking in.
We greeted each other
then,
as we do to this day,
each noticing the other
in the blessed acceptance
of being.
Once,
Sick and fevered I rose
gasping in the middle
of a winter’s night
and pulled back the curtain
to find her shining
over snow so newly fallen
that not a flake
had been disturbed,
but glowed in her gaze
cascading in curves
over a street I knew
but saw again
for the first time,
now softened
by snowlight’s reflection
of her blessed touch.
I looked and looked
at this gracious gift
of enchantment’s echo
until I felt I was being
looked at in turn
and blessed too.
In the morning,
I woke,
well.
Once,
I walked the pier
between my parents
on the night before
I left to follow
the path.
We watched her rise
together,
in silence
and listened to a mandolin
playing in the distance.
We did not have to speak,
the Moon sang for us,
soul songs only we could hear.
Always remember this night,
they said later.
As if I could
do anything
else?
Once,
Feeling bereft and lost
I caught sight of her
rising over a strange city
(Though I remember her,
and the feelings,
but not the city it was.)
and I did not feel lost
anymore
How could you be lost
when you are always
under her graced gaze?.
How could you be alone
when everyone you know
and love is beneath her blessing
too?
I asked myself.
Once,
I saw her,
loom so large
as to almost
be alarming,
bedecked in harvest
gold and heavy seeming,
she lit the land beneath
so beautifully
that the cattle on the hills
cried out to her,
and the birds began their chorus
for a dawn
that was yet hours away.
I danced in her light
that night,
beneath the trees,
a slow sandaled
shuffle of monkish sort,
and bowed deeply
as she passed.
How could you not?
When all around
and within
was
psalming
celebration
of her compline
completeness.
Once,
I watched her rise
sickle sharp
over Assisi.
As though making manifest
the unseen divine smile
hanging in the air
over this holy place
where joy was married
to peace in the song
of brother-sisterhood.
I smiled back and felt
the saint smile too
behind it all
and wondered what
his long silent nights
of prayer
must have been like,
measured only by her dance
across the sky
slowly revealing her face
to him,
as grace comes gently
to fill us
only as we empty,
and so seem
to disappear
into divine darkness
just like
her.
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