The Other Half of Night

Notes from the Hollow Bone | Entry sixty

I have searched the heavens for you,
though I have never known your absence.
I have called you through a thousand silences,
and felt you answer without a word.

Mother Moon,

I cannot remember when I first knew you,
nor can I remember a time I did not.
Somewhere beyond the keeping of memory,
something in me has always known your light.

I have watched you rise beyond the trees,
followed your passage over the sleeping house,
and waited as the night grew still
for your silver grace to find my window.

And when you came,
you did not arrive as a distant light.

You filled the quiet beside me,
unfurled your radiance across my bed,
and gathered the weary hours of the day
into a stillness I could finally inhabit.

For daylight calls me into the world,
but moonlight cradles me within it.

I have wondered what ancient kinship
makes my spirit turn toward yours.
What forgotten beginning
still remembers how to recognize you.

Perhaps I was born carrying a little of the heavens,
a wandering spark among my sister stars,
a child of earth who has never forgotten
the wonder of belonging to the sky.

And so I empty my hands of the day,
lay down all that asks to be carried,
and welcome the quiet abundance
of your light upon my own.

I do not ask you to remain.
I know the heavens have their turning.
Yet even when you pass beyond my window,
I have not lost what I have known.

For I have never been apart
from the wonder that gave us both our place.

And when sleep finally finds me,
I close my eyes beneath your silver keeping,
holding the hand of a beloved
I cannot remember ever meeting,
nor imagine ever being without.

With Grace & Ink,
Mai