Luna

The first sentence I strung together as a kid was, "Pitty moo-un",  pointing a chubby finger out of my stroller to the night sky.   Pretty moon.  Whether my toddler self recognized a pre-existent love, or whether that began the affair I do not know, but it seems I have loved the moon ever since. 

 "Faithful witness in the sky," the psalmist writes in Ps. 89.  How often the sight of even a slivered moon has served as a reminder of goodness!   As a freshman walking across campus alone on a Thursday night in late September, shuffling feet through leaves and grass and watching the sidewalk, it was the moon that drew my eyes upward, piercing through loneliness and speaking, "You.  You there.  I know exactly where you are." 

A full moon, rising in unobstructed silver glory in the western sky above Davis Lake is something to behold.  On the rocks there I liked to watch the moon, sometimes two hours at a time, letting it soothe my spirit in its coolness.  The purity of light orders clamoring thoughts, separates important from not, divides marrow from bone.  

Last night I slept better than I have in a few weeks in a pool of moonlight that poured in from the bedroom window, opening my eyes every once in a while to see clouds billow in and out, sometimes pewter in color, sometimes alight, and sometimes so dark one would never guess the light hid behind them.   And occasionally the brightness would muscle out the clouds letting that unabashed, lovely gaze fall to earth, "You. You there.  I know exactly where you are."

Science and folk lore have disagreed over whether the moon is made of rock or of cheese but I say its an unblinking Eye, casting its sight over this shrouded planet, faithfully witnessing to its own glory.