The Moon and the Miracle

The moon and the miracle
Santee, SC
January 28, 2013

And on other nights (one night before full, or one night after)
,
the moon does not make me smile
or remember a lover who once held all of my tension and attention
I don’t think of children’s rhymes or giddy night rides with the headlights off

Instead, I am shocked by the dusty weight of the thing
On those rare nights it appears to be what it really is
A heavy, chalky stone
hanging impossibly in the sky
 and not falling

As though a giant with biceps like the balanced boulders of Bryce
had fashioned a ball of clay
,
each handful scooping a new Grand Canyon,
packing it together
 and heaving it into the sky
to catch there on an iron hook of gravity in motion

How is this massive, dusty thing suspended there not a miracle?

And yes, of course, I know the science
,
that even this great weight can be held in the tension
between attraction and freedom
as I once was with that long ago lover

The truth they taught me in science class is now a lie
centrifugal force isn’t really a thing, just a characteristic of inertia
and Pluto is no longer a planet, but a stone with roughly the cosmic social status of this one I’m staring at,
wide-eyed and vaguely disturbed

No matter—the science still holds water, and this stone in the sky
The rules have merely been recategorized

Understanding those rules, though, does not assuage my awe
or my delighted surprise at having this milky light suddenly slide out from behind a tree
moving the shadows of branches across my path and leaving me breathless

My sad and brilliant friend gently suggests that I am foolish for this talk of miracles, though we do not disagree about the rules of science

But must the moon break the rules to be miraculous?

I think the miracles lie within the rules themselves
That I and my friend and my far away forgotten lover and this pen and that suspended stone and the ether in which it hangs are all made up of atoms which are made up almost entirely of empty space…

Tell me that there are no miracles

And I will tell you that you are the very miracle you deny