A barely moonlit night: the moon is a tall skinny thing rising over the mountains. Its adolescent face peers over the mountain, down into the inlet, onto the city and across the bay. Embracing the young moon, the broad black sky is bright with stars: cold end empty.

Little waves play near the shore, so late at night they should be asleep. Bigger waves watch from further offshore. Most nights you can hear them calling to the little ones, but tonight they are quiet; they have nothing to say. The night is calm and the world is content to settle in for the night and watch the little moon make its way over the mountain and explore the secret folds of the valleys below.

Every mystic longs to make himself known to the night and most of all, to the dusky thief of light – the patron saint of all of those who skulk, and whisper and plot. The moon has watched lovers kiss, and children sneaking out of the house, running across the yard to the cover of the trees. It has seen men march in long broken lines to whatever fates await them. It has seen robbers and muggers and murderers stalking their victims; it has seen men stumble out of bars, and women stumble out of cars. It has watched animals stumble out into clearings and pause to gain their bearings. It has seen animals break into clearings, blind with panic, and never stopping fly into dark consuming woods. It has seen the secret shame of man and beast, and witnessed the strange powers there are that ply their trade by night.

It has seen what we do not, and knows what we do not. It watches us with a cold, expressionless face.

Mystics covet its knowledge. They yearn to partner with the moon, to become its brother, and to sweep the sky with its aid, and to know all manner of secrets of man and of all the animals who go out at night. They want to riffle through its files and intercept its communications – they want to ride with the moon and blackmail the sun.

Shame rises with the sun. Whatever was done in the light of the moon was done by a baser animal than the morning man. The morning man is just, and righteous, and pure in thought; while the moonlight man is low and greedy, and hidden in shadows. He is soiled with the grime of his misdemeanours. The morning man steps briskly out of the house with his hair still wet from the shower, his cologne rising from his body in a purifying cloud – a sin offering making a pleasing odour to the Lord.

Whatever transgressed the night before is a dim, grey memory – a tinge of unease that defies recollection, until gradually throughout the day, it nudges closer and closer and by noon can be heard muttering painful little reminders in the ear. The morning is a time of purity – of sanctity – while the remainder of the day is wiser and sadder.

But a new moon is no innocent. It cannot be bribed or entreated or reproached. It will not answer anymore than the full moon will. It watches us standing far down below with our arms out toward it. It watches us watching it, and it watches us turn away and go back inside to sleep.

The next night it is back, a little older and a little fuller. It watches to see if we will come out again, and if we do, it watches us until we go away again. It watched the mountains come up and the valleys fall away.

It watched while ice buried the land two miles deep and it watched, night by might, as the ice slowly dripped away and the crushed shore rose painfully from the ocean and lay gasping like a salmon on the deck of a boat.

It had seen waters rushing down the valley in an riverine deluge of biblical proportions. It had seen the highest city ridges carved by glacial outflow, waters lapping around it, waters rushing past, scouring. It watched the snow melt away from the mountains, and into the valleys.

It had seen this cycle of life and death happen over and over again over billions of years. It had seen life itself begin, rise up and look around and grow. It had seen everything.

But it had also seen the cataclysym that tore its body apart. It had seen itself become the dead one – the one who was too small to live, that fell too close to the proverbial tree. Doomed to spend eternity staring back down at the earth, coveting perhaps the warmth of a summer night or the patter of children’s feet, or suffering whatever longing might keep it forever circling the Earth and watching.

This small summer moon. Storied for a blip in its life. Recent object of song and romance. It has spent the vast majority of its sentence patrolling the Earth, waiting for someone to care if he’s blue or over Mississippi.