DAY MOON SETTING BEHIND CLOUDS
September 11, 2014
Thirteenth anniversary and my mother’s
95th birthday. Before leaving for work,
I dial her at the Care Center. A nursing
assistant carries the phone to her room,
but my greeting can’t cut through her deafness.
Thirteen years ago when her faculty
of hearing was intact, she sounded
scandalized that I’d even thought to call.
“You should be watching the TV!” Driving,
I feel gloomy. On a freeway overpass
people in what look like fire-fighter or
military uniforms energetically
shake flags. Bless their hearts, but I don’t
honk. Who does? In the west, a waning, less-
than-full moon hovers near the horizon
in blue sky between banners of cloud.
The moon, the same chalk-white as the clouds,
is beginning to set, making me
wonder where and for whom it is now
rising. For whom in this wide world does
the moon shine bright? Now it is slowly
lowering into clouds, this moon that is not
any less real for its disappearance
in the soft white that borders the rim of
our planet. For a moment I can still
differentiate its curve from the top
of the cloud layer, and then I cannot.
The flag-shakers even if they stay on
the overpass all day eventually must
leave. One day even an occupying army
has to go home. I stop at a light,
lay a dollar in a homeless black man’s
hand, tell him, “It’s my mother’s birthday.”
Thomas R. Smith
Illustration Nick Victor