TOP OF THE MOON
Sitting on top of the moon where fireflies dance, I am enthralled and pleased as I sway to the soundless music of their wings.
Theirs is the only light tonight and the air is cool. The summer whispers have become rare. I arrived here long, long ago, when the desert winds reached up to this moon, and the coldness within it evaporated as warm sands formed the crystal peaks that you now see.
This happened when I was very young and curious about the little blue planet that spins some distance away. I want to visit there but am afraid, having heard so many fearful things about the great unhappiness there. I've dared to travel only as far as its moon. It has been a long voyage from my native land which lies just beyond the horizon where the stars become invisible. And I've remained on this very spot since I arrived here.
I am building my courage to complete my journey to that intriguing planet. Those I've left behind think me quite foolish saying that it is a not-quite-refined kind of place. Perhaps it is something unrefined in myself that draws me to it. They may be right, though I see it only as a graceful presence among the stars.
I think, surely, it cannot be as bad as they claim. Not as dreadful and dreary -- for aren't we all so completely at the center of a most distinguished Universe? A Universe that is Cause to all that is, and Creator, even, of sometimes unhappy little blue planets that turn silently in a twinkling sky?
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Words & Pictures © by Arlene Graston
All Rights Reserved
