Member-only story
A Song to the Moon
With apologies to Dvořák.
I wanted to write something beautiful.
Not to charm or to persuade. Not in the hope it might make you like me better. I wanted to do it simply to do it, a response called out of me by the view from the window and the clear skies of the world. As natural as a reflection on a still pool of water. As natural as the sunlight fading on the silver skin of the puddle in my driveway.
Because the only true happiness I’ve found in this world comes from a full and unquestioning appreciation of these things. Seeing with the heart instead of the mind. Experiencing, for an instant that may as well be forever, the silver strands that flow from the world to me and back again.
I wanted to write something beautiful.
But nothing I could write would be as beautiful as the graceful arc of the moon rising above that ragged bar of cloud. Nothing I could say would shine like the snow on the mountains, neon pink in the last rays of the failing sun.
We feel as though these things move, as though we stand still in the center of their circling orbits, even though we know that’s not true. Keats said that truth is beauty and beauty truth, but he died of consumption and bad reviews.
