CRITIQUE ME.
I wonder why God lets me guard the moon.
She's impatient and interrupting. Her child-hands grab my hair just when I've fallen asleep for the first time in weeks, her sentences are unclear and garbled, dripping out like the alphabet soup I spoon-fed her for dinner. She's confused and unsure of everything she does -- waning when she's ready to wax, full when she's meant to be new and invisible. She's messy and inconsistent; the tides never rise quite right anymore.
It's on those unlit nights she crawls to me, beautiful in her vestal livery, and in the dark I can make out her toothless grin. Just as quick it fades, and her face is all tears and worry, those cries that defy gravity and shatter stars. "Here, you'll understand someday," I promise and scoop her in to my night-sky arms. She quiets and like the serene goddess she is, sleeps, blissfully unaware.
I wonder why God lets me guard the moon. She's become fuller in the sky, each day never quite the same, bringing a new surprise and worry. I will remain silent all the years until she mirrors the sun, looming large and imposing, her arms outstretched and her pale face turned toward an unsure future. I will be the fixed star that grew her in the womb of planet dust and light years. I will be the moon mother. We will be eternal.
And when the sun rises and she turns her face for an instant, blinded by the light, I will touch her hair and kiss her forehead. "Don't back down," I'll tell her. Grounded, I will be the fingers that slowly slip from her's as she ascends, and the extended arms when she floats back after a long, hard day. I will be the constant when she remains the opposite; there are some things she didn't inherit from me.
And maybe God lets me guard the moon knowing I will not draw back when her glow is overpowering, I will not bar her in my fingers when she wishes to rise. I will not be the gravity that keeps her from flying, and I won't be the starlight that overshadows her.
I will just be. Without rhyme or reason, restriction or boundary. And for the moon, the inconstant, confused, messy, unsure but beautiful moon,
that might just be enough.