Eclipse

We turned our backs on the world, Duncan and I, ignored the phone, cleared a space for ourselves and went out for a long walk just as the moon was slipping across the globe of the sun. It did not matter that the clouds were slipping across them both. I had faith that by creating the moment, making room for it in our lives, that nothing else would matter.

And I was right. The unpleasantness of the day slipped further behind with each step we took and as we laid on the grass, both looking and not looking at the sun, poised as it was above the craggy, dark line of the mountains, the clouds trying their best to come between us, the air cooled, the park silenced and a golden hued shadow settled over the land.

Duncan cooled his belly on the grass and let me lay my head against his chest, the slow rising and falling of his breathing as soothing as a lullaby. It was our moment and it did not matter that so much had tried to come between us and the silence of it. It mattered only that we shared it together.

From Bone to Blood

The clouds ahead were moving slower than the ones behind and no matter how long I stood outside, Duncan at my feet gnawing on wood chips, no matter how hard I wished it, I just couldn't make the moon come out for me. I spent more time watching the dark gaps between clouds, oceans to their continents, drifting slowly, slowly eastward, never quite wisping away, only thickening the harder I watched. They rose up from unknown places, ignoring the vast expanse of clearness in the southwest, ignoring physics by materializing from nothingness, like smoke or dreams or something for which we have no words. I stood, shifting my weight from foot to foot, thrusting my hands into my pockets to keep them warm. I walked with Duncan around the buildings, turning to look over my shoulder every few seconds and still, no matter how hard I sought, the moon wouldn't play hide-and-seek, only hide. I could see its glow shining from its bottom end through the clouds, like something glimpsed through many mirrors, but the sky wouldn't give me what I wanted, clarity and vision, connectedness with all those people who are out there in the night gazing up at it, watching it turn from bone to blood, children, wrapped in blankets and mittens sitting on laps waiting for the moon to disappear. We are all looking for the moon, and in a sense, looking for each other, sailors on the seas of night, guided toward a single destination.

Image courtesy of Google Images