9-11 Numb

The full moon blasted me awake in the middle of last night, jangling many chords of memory: poems, sights, stories involving moonlight. Dylan Thomas' poem was one, where he says he writes "When only the moon rages ... for the lovers, their arms/ Round the griefs of the ages," and another of my favorites "For G." by Wilfrid Gibson begins "All night under the moon/ Plovers are flying". I remembered how in moonlight the white sand along Florida highways looks like drifted snow (to one raised in a temperate climate). Then, because of the season, I thought how the sands around Bethlehem would have resembled snowdrifts in the moonlight as Mary and Joseph approached (and Mary, nine months pregnant riding on a mule--ouch!). My notion of Bethlehem-in-desert comes from my introduction to Christmas in the Sand Table Class at church, where endless Bible stories were played out in the raised sandbox. I felt the weight of the ages, and all the griefs this time of the year sums up for me, deaths of beloveds and beloved relationships. The last months of the calendar have been sad for my lifetime, and now it begins with September, remembering 9/11/2001. One of the losses was my mother's partner of decades. I heard myself telling someone that he'd died "two years ago" at this time last year. "Five years ago!" my mother snapped to correct me. Recalling that interchange, I realized that the griefs of all my ages became crystallized and condensed into the 9/11 terror, and that is why I haven't been able to write about it until the moon struck me last night.

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