more about the moon

The moon was low and soft in the late late afternoon sky, as if it were trying to disguise itself as a planet, deep yellow with grey streaks of cloud. Later it rose and was disguised as a Necco wafer, Canada mint, or possibly the cross-section of a marshmallow. I realized as I drove home tonight that I don't think of the moon as a sphere, rather as a disk, as if it had an edge and was vast in its flatness. Completely mysteriously it hangs up there, sometimes round, sometimes narrow, sometimes gone behind a drape of shadow. I have come to depend on its presence, through heartache, through raising a teenager, through a parent's lifechanging illness. If the moon were a word instead of an orb nearly 24 thousand miles away, it would be FAITH.