Have You Got The Moon Safe?
by Sarah Harley
Photo by Daniel Gaffey on Unsplash
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Have you got the moon safe?
Please, tie those strings a little tighter. This loaf, push it down further the light is crushing it–such a baguette golden brown and so white inside you don’t see every day nowadays. –Denise Levertov |
The dusty road ran along the edge of the primordial marsh where the cattails grew tall on slender tapering stalks. Small outlines of birds perched on the highest grasses. Sandpipers darted overhead with stiff curved wings. Inside my pocket was a stale piece of bread my mother gave me to feed to the wild chickens. They pecked and scratched the ground outside the abandoned barn house: mottled browns, speckled blacks, vivid reds. My older sister carried me on a piggy-back ride. We were five and seven. My father walked in front. The moon hung low in the sky, appearing redder and larger before falling into the marsh.
“Where does the moon go?” I asked my father. But he was lost in thoughts of wild things.
He couldn’t live without wild things like winds and sunsets.
“Where does the moon go?” I asked my father. But he was lost in thoughts of wild things.
He couldn’t live without wild things like winds and sunsets.
~
One winter day, my father suffered a fatal heart attack, often referred to as a ‘widow-maker,’ while he was driving to work. The name was ill-fitting as my mother had already died eight years earlier when I was thirteen.
A long night moon took a high trajectory across the sky. I was twenty-one.
My son was raised in my grief, in an environment marked by my fears about the world’s safety, a place where people drove to work and never returned. He held only a handful of memories of his grandfather: the sound of an apple bitten to its core, being lifted high into the air, a fall onto a stone step where my father’s arms swiftly came to his rescue.
“Mummy! Bampa put the stars on!” he called out one night as we walked back to the small apartment on Belleview Street. He was three. My father had been gone for a few months. The first frantic period of mourning had passed, ebbing into a dull quiet ache.
We did have a beautiful view. The branches of leafy Paper Birch trees almost touched the windows. His child bed was tucked against the wall in the sunroom, the green teddy bear named Edward leaned against the pillow. A thin piece of opaque material separated our sleeping spaces. I liked keeping him close, just behind the curtain that floated in the breeze through the window.
I wanted to give him everything.
I stuck glow-in-the dark stars on the ceiling of all his childhood bedrooms, standing on a chair to peel them off just before we moved and sticking them back up before nightfall. There was no moon in the imaginary night sky of his bedroom. I wished for him to have a moon, always full, radiant, and luminous, present even in its moments of growing smaller before it vanished.
He slept under a moonless sky. I had surely failed.
I started to carry an imaginary moon everywhere with me, folded up inside a string bag, hoping it wouldn’t be crushed by a loaf of bread or a bag of clementines.
A long night moon took a high trajectory across the sky. I was twenty-one.
My son was raised in my grief, in an environment marked by my fears about the world’s safety, a place where people drove to work and never returned. He held only a handful of memories of his grandfather: the sound of an apple bitten to its core, being lifted high into the air, a fall onto a stone step where my father’s arms swiftly came to his rescue.
“Mummy! Bampa put the stars on!” he called out one night as we walked back to the small apartment on Belleview Street. He was three. My father had been gone for a few months. The first frantic period of mourning had passed, ebbing into a dull quiet ache.
We did have a beautiful view. The branches of leafy Paper Birch trees almost touched the windows. His child bed was tucked against the wall in the sunroom, the green teddy bear named Edward leaned against the pillow. A thin piece of opaque material separated our sleeping spaces. I liked keeping him close, just behind the curtain that floated in the breeze through the window.
I wanted to give him everything.
I stuck glow-in-the dark stars on the ceiling of all his childhood bedrooms, standing on a chair to peel them off just before we moved and sticking them back up before nightfall. There was no moon in the imaginary night sky of his bedroom. I wished for him to have a moon, always full, radiant, and luminous, present even in its moments of growing smaller before it vanished.
He slept under a moonless sky. I had surely failed.
I started to carry an imaginary moon everywhere with me, folded up inside a string bag, hoping it wouldn’t be crushed by a loaf of bread or a bag of clementines.
I wished for him to have a moon, always full, radiant, and luminous,
present even in its moments of growing smaller before it vanished.
present even in its moments of growing smaller before it vanished.
One day, I packed up the moon, stuffing it deep inside the bag we carried.
“Mummy! Look at the moon!” my son cried out when he saw it. The moon, sublime and full, shone across his face.
I wanted to give him everything, even the things I could not.
I was a single parent, without a car, a husband, and a house, just a one-bedroom 1913 apartment, with wooden floors and a view across a pretty street.
A few months after my father died, we moved into his house. My son and I lived on the third floor while I rented out three other rooms to friends, still barely able to pay the mortgage. He played on a soft carpet in a small room, through the window you could see the changing colors of the oak and maple trees.
At the age of four, my son and I walked everywhere, from my father’s house to a line of shops and cafes about a mile away. We always crossed East Newberry Boulevard, a 150-feet-wide street, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to connect Lake Park and Riverside Park. The boulevard stretched twelve blocks from Lake Michigan in the east to the Milwaukee River in the west. Hundred-year-old elms formed a canopy over the road.
The paths in the woods along the river were lit up with elegant wrought iron lamps that filtered a pretty light through the trees. At dusk, you could see the moon low in the sky behind the branches.
On the way home, we stopped at the place my son named “Berry Grass Field” although it wasn’t a field at all. It was a wide grassy median where the snow was piled high by the plows in deep winter.
As winter waned, a pink sky was followed by the warmth of air on skin.
In the spring, it became a dream only a child could recognize: yellow dappled sunlight through a peak in the clouds, the rustling leaves of the trees, shadows long and defined, cast in soft evening light.
“Mummy, we’re here,” my son cried out with joy when we reached the spot, as if it was a real destination. I always guarded the treasure of his imagination.
Berry Grass Field marked the halfway point between home and any other location. I loved the way our journeys were punctuated.
We stopped in the shade of the trees to have an impromptu picnic: a peach, a plum, or an apricot; bites of a tiny, sweet fruit tart he’d been given in the bakery. A jar of Nutella was opened.
“Mummy! Look at the moon!” my son cried out when he saw it. The moon, sublime and full, shone across his face.
I wanted to give him everything, even the things I could not.
I was a single parent, without a car, a husband, and a house, just a one-bedroom 1913 apartment, with wooden floors and a view across a pretty street.
A few months after my father died, we moved into his house. My son and I lived on the third floor while I rented out three other rooms to friends, still barely able to pay the mortgage. He played on a soft carpet in a small room, through the window you could see the changing colors of the oak and maple trees.
At the age of four, my son and I walked everywhere, from my father’s house to a line of shops and cafes about a mile away. We always crossed East Newberry Boulevard, a 150-feet-wide street, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to connect Lake Park and Riverside Park. The boulevard stretched twelve blocks from Lake Michigan in the east to the Milwaukee River in the west. Hundred-year-old elms formed a canopy over the road.
The paths in the woods along the river were lit up with elegant wrought iron lamps that filtered a pretty light through the trees. At dusk, you could see the moon low in the sky behind the branches.
On the way home, we stopped at the place my son named “Berry Grass Field” although it wasn’t a field at all. It was a wide grassy median where the snow was piled high by the plows in deep winter.
As winter waned, a pink sky was followed by the warmth of air on skin.
In the spring, it became a dream only a child could recognize: yellow dappled sunlight through a peak in the clouds, the rustling leaves of the trees, shadows long and defined, cast in soft evening light.
“Mummy, we’re here,” my son cried out with joy when we reached the spot, as if it was a real destination. I always guarded the treasure of his imagination.
Berry Grass Field marked the halfway point between home and any other location. I loved the way our journeys were punctuated.
We stopped in the shade of the trees to have an impromptu picnic: a peach, a plum, or an apricot; bites of a tiny, sweet fruit tart he’d been given in the bakery. A jar of Nutella was opened.
"The moon, sublime and full, shone across his face. I wanted to give him everything, even the things I could not." |
The picnics evoked the memories of childhood holidays in France, back when we were a complete family, when I was a child before my mother died from cancer and my brother died from a fall, before my father died on his way to work.
I peeled away the silver foil and helped my son to unwrap segments of Laughing Cow Cheese and ripped apart chunks of a warm baguette, golden brown and white inside. |
“Mummy! Let’s have triangle cheese!”
I didn’t want to be anywhere else but there. I felt a boundless moment of belonging.
Inside the bag, the moon reached a peak of illumination. I wanted to give it to my son, but it was somehow beyond my reach. Night was gathering around us.
I didn’t want to be anywhere else but there. I felt a boundless moment of belonging.
Inside the bag, the moon reached a peak of illumination. I wanted to give it to my son, but it was somehow beyond my reach. Night was gathering around us.
~
Winter came early the year after my father died. In the dark of the moon, the early frost killed fruit buds and blossoms. Only the frost in the light of the moon did not kill.
My son turned five then six. We walked everywhere, gathering pinecones and brightly-colored crimson and golden leaves. Our walks were mapped into memory. I taught him how to read and how to ride a bicycle, how to swim and how to find the North Star and the Little Dipper. Each night, I read him stories to nurture his inner world, to tend the kind of solitude you can go home to.
I wanted to give him everything, especially the wild things. But each year, the moon began to fade a little more.
My son turned seven then eight. Over time, the moon inside the bag grew a little crumpled. One night, I tried to iron it to make it flat but the edges grew singed. My son stood in the doorway, anger emanating from his small frame.
“What are you doing to the moon?”
I folded the moon and handed it to him. He stormed off to his bedroom and slammed the door, the moon swinging under his arm. I had surely failed.
I tried to give him everything. Even the things I did not possess.
When I tiptoed in to say goodnight, I saw he had tried to tape the moon above his bed, but its light was weakening. By the next morning, the moon had fallen behind his bed.
My son turned nine then ten.
I took the moon back, without asking. It was pale and faint. I held it close to me but the further away it seemed to feel, as if it was drifting, higher and higher into a starless sky. I folded it up and hid it inside a cupboard drawer with the hopes that the moon could rest there and become brighter.
My son turned eleven then twelve. An ungovernable distance grew. We moved to a house with its own garden in the shade of a tall tree. We started to argue about the whereabouts of the moon and whether or not it was even real. I sat with my head in my hands at a table in the small kitchen at the back of the house.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Closed doors, sometimes slamming like the ones in my childhood house. The moon went missing. At night, I lay on my bed trying to imagine the moon on the ceiling of my bedroom. The dark night shimmered around its edges. I tried to put my thoughts and worries to sleep. I tried to let go of thinking. A dark shadow took the moon’s place.
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. My son left home.
At night, I opened the window to let the moon come back. I had read that the moon never uses the door, only the window.
I tried to wait for a new moon, knowing I had to learn to be patient and understand gradualness. I knew it would appear slowly.
I waited for all the moons: Snow Moon. Pink Moon. Strawberry Moon. Cold Moon. I waited in a fullness of my own waiting until I felt I was the moon, bright and full and luminous. I felt its presence as a thin sliver of light inside me.
My son turned five then six. We walked everywhere, gathering pinecones and brightly-colored crimson and golden leaves. Our walks were mapped into memory. I taught him how to read and how to ride a bicycle, how to swim and how to find the North Star and the Little Dipper. Each night, I read him stories to nurture his inner world, to tend the kind of solitude you can go home to.
I wanted to give him everything, especially the wild things. But each year, the moon began to fade a little more.
My son turned seven then eight. Over time, the moon inside the bag grew a little crumpled. One night, I tried to iron it to make it flat but the edges grew singed. My son stood in the doorway, anger emanating from his small frame.
“What are you doing to the moon?”
I folded the moon and handed it to him. He stormed off to his bedroom and slammed the door, the moon swinging under his arm. I had surely failed.
I tried to give him everything. Even the things I did not possess.
When I tiptoed in to say goodnight, I saw he had tried to tape the moon above his bed, but its light was weakening. By the next morning, the moon had fallen behind his bed.
My son turned nine then ten.
I took the moon back, without asking. It was pale and faint. I held it close to me but the further away it seemed to feel, as if it was drifting, higher and higher into a starless sky. I folded it up and hid it inside a cupboard drawer with the hopes that the moon could rest there and become brighter.
My son turned eleven then twelve. An ungovernable distance grew. We moved to a house with its own garden in the shade of a tall tree. We started to argue about the whereabouts of the moon and whether or not it was even real. I sat with my head in my hands at a table in the small kitchen at the back of the house.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Closed doors, sometimes slamming like the ones in my childhood house. The moon went missing. At night, I lay on my bed trying to imagine the moon on the ceiling of my bedroom. The dark night shimmered around its edges. I tried to put my thoughts and worries to sleep. I tried to let go of thinking. A dark shadow took the moon’s place.
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. My son left home.
At night, I opened the window to let the moon come back. I had read that the moon never uses the door, only the window.
I tried to wait for a new moon, knowing I had to learn to be patient and understand gradualness. I knew it would appear slowly.
I waited for all the moons: Snow Moon. Pink Moon. Strawberry Moon. Cold Moon. I waited in a fullness of my own waiting until I felt I was the moon, bright and full and luminous. I felt its presence as a thin sliver of light inside me.
~
"I waited in a fullness of my own waiting until I felt I was the moon, bright and full and luminous. I felt its presence as a thin sliver of light inside me."
Many years later, my son and I walked down a street from long ago. We chatted about the picnics and laughed about Berry Grass Field.
I watched as he deftly tightened the strings to secure the moon he had in his possession.
“What are you doing with the moon?” I whispered.
“Don’t worry. I have the moon safe. I’m going to put it back. You cannot live without wild things.”
And just then, as he let go of the strings, the moon rose high into the sky above us, brilliant and complete.
We talked about the other side of the moon, the one you can never see, just an illusion as the moon is in synchronous rotation with Earth.
I carried a loaf, golden brown and white within.
I watched as he deftly tightened the strings to secure the moon he had in his possession.
“What are you doing with the moon?” I whispered.
“Don’t worry. I have the moon safe. I’m going to put it back. You cannot live without wild things.”
And just then, as he let go of the strings, the moon rose high into the sky above us, brilliant and complete.
We talked about the other side of the moon, the one you can never see, just an illusion as the moon is in synchronous rotation with Earth.
I carried a loaf, golden brown and white within.
Sarah Harley is originally from the UK. She works at Milwaukee High School of the Arts where she supports her refugee students in telling their own stories. Sarah holds a BA in Comparative Literature and French, as well as an MA in Foreign Language and Literature. Her essays have appeared in Halfway Down the Stairs, Idle Ink, The Thieving Magpie, Quail Bell Magazine, and elsewhere.
A 2025 Pushcart Prize nominee, Sarah's story can be found in Issue 28 of Glassworks.
