Because on Monday I am not a Syrian refugee, fleeing 
with nothing but my name, lost on a 2-year-long waiting 
list to safety. Because Tuesday I am not the hawthorn tree 

found feeble with rot in our yard, trunk collapsing to its core. 
Because, come Wednesday, I’m neither my neighbor’s lost curls 
nor her wept tears, dropping onto the chemo chair. 

Because these late-September temperatures never did plummet 
as predicted by Thursday, and I can’t forget to plunge again 
into the piercing lake, to swim once more, deliriously numb. 

Because on Friday morning, not another soul in my garden, 
I work leaf litter into loss, kneading the earth while kneeling down, 
grateful to have known the hawthorn—its blossom and its thorn. 

Because we can’t even fathom an age as old as Saturn’s— 
four-and-a-half billion years—yet already, before it’s over, 
we’ve begun to miss this day, the one we’ve just been given. 

And the one after that. Because on Sunday, after nightfall, 
we sit under dark skies on our wobbly outdoor lawn chairs, 
their old joints creaking, the wood silvering to gray, all 

of us waiting together—mother, father, and son-on-the-cusp- 
of-adulthood—warm under blankets, the air grown cool, 
our puppy roving from lap to lap, wondering what’s up 

as we speak or don’t speak. In the welcome quiet, gazing 
out across the lake, up over tree line, our heads tilted back, 
we stare in awe at the Super Blood Moon, just now eclipsing. 

Because, whatever Science says about some equal future moon, 
I know the rare particulars of this vast and intimate brilliance— 
the now of us—won’t ever, in our lifetime, come my way again.