On peace

She howls at the moon from the middle of the moonlit prairie, waiting in the vast blue-gray expanse for the skies to open up and wring out rain.

She aches for it – the liquid simultaneously cool and warm, like the womb of a bubble bath. Something like home.

Ahhh…at last - newly clean, lungs aching, she and God will finally get somewhere. Somewhere transcendent and new – a place where love is all around and venomous snakes stay off her land.

(Then she doesn’t have to look to the ground and watch each step.)

But the poison is a forgotten nightmare. Here they have the moon and the happy little moments where the stars are as children to her. She knows their names, locations and when they came to be. In rapture, she stares. She sleeps the slumber of a newborn infant.

They do. Together. Breath rising and falling in a rhythm set forth in Eden.

Even in bliss, this is not a vision to be made manifest. It is the gossamer and glitter of dreams and pixie dust, only tangible through the magic of a humble carpenter.

She will sigh again, head heavy and mourning her walk into the moonlight. She will watch for snakes as anxiety does its best to rise up as a knot in her throat. But it will not come to pass. The moon is enough light for father and daughter. Eternity and ash. Creator and clay.