I Saw

“I see the moon, the moon sees me,

God bless the moon and God bless me”

The words leapt into my mind when I awoke suddenly and gazed out the bedroom window.

I hadn’t thought or even remembered them since……

well, it’s been a very, very long time.

As a child I recited them nightly along with my Dad before falling asleep.

Now I realize it was he who taught me the words to the old Irish lullaby.

This July night in 2021, however, Dad has been gone for over half a century and recently, he was joined by his youngest daughter.

Mary left unexpectedly, and was, I will ever believe, another undocumented victim of Covid.

Now, awakening unexpectedly on this mid summer night, I saw the moon again. Although always glorious, it was now wrapped in ruby red.

I had never viewed such magnificence before, and I was stunned by the power of its. beauty.

Earth's atmosphere had acted like a lens. It bent the Sun's red light and caused the Moon's customary bright white hue to transform into a deep blood orange.

When the words I learned once as a child sprang to my aged lips, I repeated them.

Sitting alone far from a tenament in Hells Kitchen, I wondered if the poet who had written them had also seen the glory of a Blood Moon.

On this summer night, after asking God to bless me, I prayed for others now in His care.

All those who taught me to see the moon even when hidden behind gray clouds.

And I felt the presence of the ones who had said goodbye to this earth and those left behind.

And I was at peace.