The Moon is Perfect

I


Today, the moon, content, smug and stark white, pasted itself on a dark sky, hanging benignly between two craggy mountains. And if there was one perfect thing in the world right then, it was that.



For, everything else in my world right now was like watching tomatoes in a blender. You could see bits of my life shattering and tearing, pieces of red and a little yellow splattering the lid of the blender. Soon enough, it all became a sick pink and settled down into a paste of pain. Smooth, almost, and without any trace of what it used to be before the ride the blender gave it.

Can I make a tomato out of it? No. But if I cook it right and use it in, say, a curry, or on a pizza, it will be know that there are tomatoes here. But will it be a tomato again? No.

And that is where I stand today. Not knowing if I am the blender or the tomato – perpetrator or victim. Or both. Or neither. Should I just wake to tomorrow saying shit happens, or should I be true to my heart and go through the wringer, put myself through the pain yet again and emerge raw, new and wholly vulnerable again?

As I walked watching the moon, so perfect from afar, so flawed from up close, I told myself everything in life was like that. Something that’s indescribably beautiful is also astoundingly ugly. I don’t look for perfect – in anything. When I buy something, when I make friends, when I give my heart – I tend to find that which is not whole, that which is not perfect and nurture it. Not to make it whole, not to attain perfection but to cherish the irregularities of life. To feel under my fingertips, the nubby texture of life.

In that process, I chip away from my heart, my soul, my body to nurture. I do it without asking, as the clouds part with their burden of rain on parched land. Sometimes, after the clouds are light, the earth gets a rash of green. And at other times, when the clouds carry too much to know their limits, the parched land below floods. If I can stop myself, I nurture. If I can’t I destroy. Even as the clouds are sleepingly unaware of it, so too am I.



II

My box is empty, my acts are done,
The lights are dim and tired.
I walk alone, the spotlight follows me;
And I wave at the face I’ve never seen.



Suddenly, he dims the spotlight just a little
And tells me it suits my sagging shoulders,
My sad shoulders, shoulders that speak
And tell him everything else won, not me.



I smile. I think I’ll go home with him.
Because tonight, with the applause dead
And my tricks, ashes, I am quite sure
No one knows me the way he does.

If only for a night, where I don’t have to be.
For I have no tricks to explain
Nor words to rage, soothe, or accuse with.
All I have is tonight. There will time for the end tomorrow.