The moon has its own scars, just like the sun and all the planets. Most men and women have scars if they’ve lived any, if they’ve breathed any, loved any, hated any.

I stood out in the yard last night because the moon was big and bright, and all those scars were visible to me and the entirety of the world. The alien invisible wounds brought to light, along with the green streak that went past us and them.

Police helicopters hovered above the interstate a few miles away. I watched them go round and round in a tight circle, casting their watching eye. I tried to peer through the winter trees for any sign of fire, any sign of destruction or the usual dismay of the world. Instead, I saw the electric pearl eyes of white-tailed deer. There were four, and they were as still as statues of dead men as they cautiously watched me. The slightest fall of a foot and they would dash off.

Here where I am there is grave darkness and then plumes of light dotted around. This place is tucked away and most of the world is unaware that this is where we sleep, we eat, we laugh, we love, we wonder in quiet. The outside world is so unaware, but here we are, right up on it, but not in it.

This morning my wife turned in the sheets and went back to sleep as I got up. I looked out a window in another room and the sky was colored in layers: white, pale blue, oxygen yellow, a wanderer’s green. I fed the cat in quiet, save for the chirping purrs of hunger and excitement. I made myself some Guatemalan roast coffee and the aroma filled the kitchen. I looked out that same window again and it looked like winter with spring waiting in the pen. It looked cold. But there wasn’t any snow.

I reread the birthday card she had given me the day before. Her loving words give me hope and peace as I eat vanilla yogurt and sip my coffee, the meditative sleep sounds still coming out of the small stereo. I fire up my computer and try to think of words and how to string them together. Some days they flow like Niagara’s waters, nonsensical and with a rabid heartbeat. Some days they linger at my feet and are unable to come to the light. Some days it’s a little of both. Some days life halfway hurts and halfway heals. I never know what the end result will be. Not until the review when I return to my bed at the finish of the day, when I’ve run down my battery and crawl in and hold her. I always look toward that and the dreams beyond.

By

Aaron Echoes August