I light a candle to illuminate thoughts this world holds. Some I cannot understand, others simply trying to land but hover instead. And this song keeps playing in my head.
I can’t find my way home.
I feel there will be no peace, not now, not among this culture of shame and blame. Not when you question others, but refuse to question yourself. Still I light a candle.
I can’t find my way home.
Just beyond the candlelight, I watch days slip into night, amidst a maelstrom of discontent, you never know what is meant. Look over your shoulder. Look further through your past.
I can’t find my way home.
Fistfuls of violence, mouthfuls of reality escape. Thoughts which should not be free, peace should not be a luxury. I strike a match to light up a candle, to shine a light for hope.
We exist within a conundrum: a hollow promise, less than a guarantee, with far too much fine print and hyperbole disguising immodest claims by the local chamber of commerce. Selling features surpass the benefits of living there or here, or wherever.
Often we question why we live where we live. It is greater than geography, more than an address or identity. Our company of cohorts and companions changes over time. We move, as do they.
How do we settle?
Location, location, uncertain destination, what you see in the rearview mirror will likely greet you further down the highway. They say you can’t go back. Yet, you usually do. City to neighbourhood, dwellings or simply shelter, we seek comfort. Or contentment. A place to sleep, to eat, or ignore what goes on outside the window.
Across the street or 27 stories down below.
High-density urban sprawl, demographics, economics, overpopulation, the mechanics of increased consumption of once-precious resources. We are all what we are made of.
Humanities: the quality or state of being. Home is what, home is where, we make it. Home is a place you accept more than you will understand.
In the bigger picture there is love. In this life there is evil, hatred, and death. Even greater misfortunes compound and threaten our existence. Inconceivably so. Wars rage against humanity, our prayers for peace continually ignored.
I cannot understand what I can do.
Unfortunate we can’t feel it all, or feel at all, through the depths of desolation and abomination we read about or view on technicolor screens within our comfortable existence on this side of the planet. This uncomfortable world.
I feel hopeless when I want to feel love.
Hatred has spread like ash across the globe with a greater vengeance than the fires that consumed us throughout the year. Fingertips trace our hopes, deftly scratching the surface, a dignified definition we can only dream on. The climate has changed geopolitically and environmentally.
I can’t understand the cause.
I cannot comprehend the convictions. Humankind needs to scratch deeper; we need to feel. We cannot accept that which we do not understand. I can only want love, even more than peace. I hear the cries, even from a distance. Still, we watch. And still we wait, understandably so.
I capitalize the Moon. Proper noun, proper sphere; a sign of respect. I write about the Moon.
I write about what I know.
This Moon tonight is the only one I truly know. Yes, this magnificent universe, and possibly the one beyond, has many moons, but this Earth has only one. The others (181 and counting) appear to us only as stars, small planets, space junk, and such.
Our Moon, full a few weeks back, is the only one I care about. I do not have the need, or the bandwidth, to concern myself with any, or all, of the others. This Moon alone is above my reach, but never beyond my imagination.
Planetary science has nothing to do with my Moon, it is all about the dreams and the space allowed.
At the age when I viewed the first Moon landing only on television, and not outside with the naked eye, I realized the Moon was never as close as it appeared. From that time this orbital delight has become a fascination to me. As I grow older, with each orbit around the Sun, my allure (some may say obsession) with this Moon has only become heightened.
By high school, certainly by my time in the compulsory rocks & stars university course, I was pretty much done with a practical scientific view of the element. Even my view of the Moon through photography has been more of art than of science.
Should I choose to read of the Moon, my preference has been poetry, where the words have not only been more accurate, but deeply personal. The Moon is routinely a theme or topic of many favourite poems, as familiar as love and heartbreak, pain and persistence, and so often intertwined.
You learn about yourself, as you learn of the Moon. Life lessons are to be learned.
Of Shakespeare’s 160 sonnets, four, I feel, mark the passage of man, through life or the ages. These four sonnets, I believe, speak directly of, or to, the Moon.
Thus I pass by, at any age, in any phase, as does the moon; dependent upon the light of others, always a part of the landscape, noticeable more at night, and consistent if not dependable.
I respect the Moon as I respect myself, and, even then, not enough.
Silently, or suspiciously standing in one place, in between unsteady steps I take throughout the day. Waiting, even for a moment. Respite for the time being, perhaps, not even knowing why. Questioning, unquestionably, each of us continuously striving to keep moving at our own pace, Caught up in this human race, surviving, maybe thriving as we try to determine the flow we know is best. We think. A little later today, earlier for some, we all have a path; a better way, leading to better day. Moving in different directions, sometimes hastily, as required. Some of us are simply limping along. The weight on our shoulders slows us down. We must, once in a while, stop and let it settle. Far more than waiting. Unconscious thinking, our minds move, even if our feet are firmly planted. Progress not always certain, we can only hope our intentions continue propelling us further. It has to be more than hope, yet we still we try to keep it all in stride.
