A Letter to the Moon

Dear Moon:

You have watched kingdoms rise and fall

yet tonight you feel close

as if you have come only for me

Your face holds oceans

and my eyes drift across them

like a small boat steady on the water.

I wonder how many words you have gathered,

prayers soft as the morning dew,

lovers calling out in the night,

wanderers asking you to guide them.

Still, you keep your silence,

and I speak to you as I am able,

plainly, and in soft spoken words

I want to tell you the smallest things.

Like how the beans in the garden keep reaching higher.

How my neighbor sings to herself as she sits on the porch.

Or how the cicadas rise and fall

like waves far from shore.

You remember more than anyone.

You were there when fire was our only light,

when poets wrote by a single flame,

when soldiers lifted their heads for courage,

when children gave you names from their imaginations.

Do you ever tire of us and all our asking?

We search you for permanence,

for comfort, for wonder.

Still, you return patiently like clockwork,

pulling the tides toward you,

holding what we cannot keep.

I know my words are small beside eternity

yet I send them anyway.

Moon, if you are listening

thank you for keeping watch

for the way your pale glow

makes the dark less lonely.

Forever yours,

— A traveler beneath your light