Catch a falling star…

… and put it in your pocket …

… and your pants will catch on fire!

There is a reason the sky, the heavens, the stars and planets, the far away galaxies draw the eyes, the wonder of the brain mutation in humans that allows for ‘forethought and projection’. There is a reason that the full of heart and broken of same all gaze up in amazement, searching for the same answer, “Why?”

Have you ever watched the moon rise, those rare and glorious occasions when it is full and HUGE on the horizon? It fills the sky as it fills your imagination, touches you emotionally as much as it stimulates your empirical thinking side.

Once in a while there is just the perfect amount of moisture in the air, the perfect reflection from the surface of the moon that creates a ring around the moon. A halo with a rainbow of color on its outer edge.  Sometimes it seems so close I feel I could reach up and touch it. Spin the moon within it’s ring like a blinding bright bit of a mobile.

I think about taking it and keeping if for myself. To posses, touch, hold, know and care for an almost indescribable thing of beauty. To do what is essentially, impossible – to keep and keep secret the possession of something so amazing.

What if I did get it? What pocket would I keep it in? I wear 30 X 32 jeans. Three bucks in quarters maxes out one pocket. Hide it in my jacket? Ever seen me up close? I have chest and arms of 14 year old. Only with longer arms. Like a hungry chimp.  I even sleep in a twin with boxes of books underneath – no room there.

Say I did slip it into a pocket – what about that giant glowing bright halo? Again, for those of you that know me,  a halo of any size or brightness would raise suspicion let alone that one!

So, resigned to stare from afar, to say hi, to think about even when I cannot see it. Knowing it will never be touched by me. Envious of those that will some day go there. Someone will, again, eventually. I do keep close all the times I have seen the majesty of it. The memories are mine, the stories I have created are mine, the things I have confessed and promised and asked for are ours.

In the immortal and philosophically profound words of Bruce Lee, “It is like a finger, pointing away towards the moon. If you concentrate on the finger, you miss all of that heavenly glory.”

Lately I have been focusing on my finger, not thinking through the implications of holding the moon, taking to me, for my own.

Good-bye finger, hello glorious.

Peace, Ant-Knee