“The luna moth, who lives but a few days, sometimes only a few hours, has a pale green wing whose rim is like a musical notation. Have you noticed?”
~Mary Oliver, “Musical Notation: I”
Luna. The half-full moon cradles light in her body like a secret that cools and burns. We walk the dirt roads together, maybe 10 or 12 of us, drenched in the moon’s silver. There are no street lights here, and the night is bright-cold. From any one point we see horizon and mountains stretched against the canvas of a cloudless sky.
“Nothing real is ever lost or missing.” These are the words of Jesus from Glenda Green’s Love Without End, and they ring in my ears now. It’s over a year now since I left off writing this essay, a year and a half since the accident. For such a long time, I have eaten grief. I have wandered in a dry desert edged with thorns. I have called out for help, and no one came. I have dreamed myself alone.
Yet here I am now, walking through a desert at night—and it’s made of stars, it’s made of glittering velvet. The desert is brimming with moonlight and the faces of the people that I love. Even though they never came for me, I see how much I love them. How could I expect anyone to come, when I could not come for my own self?
We just finished eating together, a plate-piled Thanksgiving dinner. I realized we never stopped and said what we’re thankful for—but then, I guess we didn’t have to. Isn’t it obvious?
I’m thankful for the luna moth and her trilling wing.
I’m grateful for the faces of the people around me—people as thirsty as I am, willing to go even to the ends of the earth in search of water.
It is my job to collect the fallen feather as it lays across the dewy grass. My work to pick up reddening leaves, to notice the trees that they came from and see if I can name them, and then call to them from my heart in a secret language, as my brothers and sisters. There is music in the smallest things, and I am bound to notice it.
“Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
Now is when I abandon death and dreams for the magic of what is given to me.
