Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment

Remember the night the moon carried you home. In your relief and recovery you ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and crashed so hard. The cows startled you in the early light amid the ponderosa pines. You’d needed carrying because there had been gunshots, and you chose a rough drive up a canyon in fading evening light. No one knew where you were and you had no cell service. Adrenaline fed you’d handled the rocky climb in your agile little car and crested the canyon rim to find the moon waiting, shining white and wide, cut by the horizon. You’d never seen a moon like this one; you finally took a breath. A greeting and an assist, the moon sat directly atop your destination, though in the moment you hadn’t known. How and where to feel safe enough to sleep now. The moon offered and you followed. In the familiar forest where you finally rested, coyotes celebrated not far off, omens of refuge. Cows slept. In the morning you felt better, and probably ate another sandwich, you don’t remember. From that morning you remember only the soft light through slim reddish tree trunks with epic stature, the here and there fussing of cows, birds chattering and singing. Anymore in the memory of that frightful night there exists only the coyotes’ lullaby, and the moon, who carried you home.