I Belong to the Sky

Notes from the Hollow Bone | Entry fifty-nine

Tonight,
I quite miss my sister stars
and Mother Moon.

There is something about the dark
that makes me remember them—
those distant fires,
those ancient lights,
those quiet keepers of the night
who have watched me become
and unbecome
a thousand different things.

I am made of stardust and light.
This much I know.

And every so often,
the body remembers
what the mind has forgotten—
that before I learned walls,
before I learned doors,
before I learned all the names
for where I did and did not belong,

I belonged to the sky.

Perhaps not in the way
one belongs to a house
or a country
or another pair of hands,

but in that older way—

the way the tide belongs to the moon,
the way dusk belongs to night,
the way something buried deep within us
still turns toward its own kind of light.

There is no particular sadness tonight,
no old wound asking to be made right.
No great longing I can name,
no heart waiting beside a flame.

Only this strange tenderness

rising beneath my skin,

like an old remembering

quietly beginning again—

something without a language,

older than thought or name,

a small celestial knowing

I have carried all the same.

My sister stars,
scattered and bright.

Mother Moon,
keeper of night.

Perhaps I miss them
because some part of me
still recognizes home
when I look toward the heavens.

Not a place to return to.
Not somewhere I need to go.

Just something ancient in my bones
whispering:

I know.

And so,
I feel romantic tonight.

Not for anyone.

Just romantic.

In love with the hour,
the hush,
the peculiar tenderness
of being alive beneath a sky
that sometimes hides itself
and is still there.

As though the night itself
has leaned a little closer,
drawing darkness around my shoulders
like some old, familiar lover.

And I—

made of dust,
made of light,
made of every ancient thing
still burning through the night—

foolishly,
willingly,

lean back.

With Grace & Ink,
                        Mai