beautiful moon

The first time I really gazed at the moon was when I lived a hippie life in an Southern Oregon cabin on Coleman Creek.  My friends and I rented a little red house with woodstove and outhouse in the middle of the woods.

One freezing night I stopped by apple orchards illuminated with hundreds of smudgepots and smoke, designed to prevent frost.  They looked like a Roman battlefield encampment.  The ivory moon appeared to be the size of a basketball in front of me. I pulled off the road in wonder.

I wanted to really see the moon, but my thoughts put me only in the past, or to a present concern.  My attention to look distracted me from really looking.

The moon reappeared as if for the first time and I felt astonished by my insignificance on this planet.   I drove home with the moon in my deepest heart.  Its color, craggy texture, possibly an old man or a cow jumping over it.  Would I want to ride up there?

What a trip to fly through the atmosphere toward the moon as it grows larger and larger.  But then I consider the annoying craft to get me up there, intense smell of fuel or the confinement of small spaces.  I’d prefer to let another enthusiast appreciate the adventure.

Imagine the surface, powdery deep sink as I stepped with my boot, would I float with no gravity?

Walking on the moon claimed my generation, dreaming in the darkness.

My children’s generation rarely talk about the moon or its mystery. Do they think about it or do they go in directions even more wild?

Do children dream as they sit in front of monitors all day?

Silence and darkness allows midnight dreaming and the moon’s time.