By Isabelle Gerhart
I must pull myself together. I see the world below as through a veil. It is a dark gauzy veil. The type that one could look through and see moonflowers growing, vampire grins peering out from behind closed rose buds, racoons scampering, and fairies beckoning you on to join the dance among all the swaying fireflies, nature’s nocturnal lanterns. It is the type of veil that makes the moon, my sister, seem to be hidden behind a stream of clouds. She still smiles with bright blue light she borrows from me as the night revels on and dreams run nigh into the starlit night.
That is what I see before I climb the morning stairs leading to the balcony of dawn. A long time ago, the sky split. I got some, and so did my sister. She loved to dance with the wild things and the quiet things, the all-nighters and the sleepers. I loved to look at the mountains. I wanted to peer under every stone and glaze every mountain top with light. She got the velvet navy of night so she could sway with the calm waves of the ocean and sing to all the wild creatures who dare to imagine more in her serene face, and I got the blue of the day so I could observe the world. I like to watch, she likes to chant. I like to gently uncurl the small green tendrils of baby leaves, and she likes to paint the oak leaves silver. It suits us. The moon to the night and the sun to the day.
Granted, no two worlds are ever really separate. My sister’s good intentions scatter the sky. She loves wishes and dreams, so she hung the stars in the galaxy to brighten up the night. A little more light for the night. Something to remind the evening cloaked world more of the daylight. Little pieces of my world arch across the sky and constellations become friendship bracelets bending the night and the day together. Not even she in all her chanter, laughs, and enchantment wanted to get lost in the night sky or the endless ceaseless drone of spinning cosmos in the bleakness of space. Even the brightest light in the night sky wanted some night lights, so she made the stars to keep her company and guide everything below. She made compasses out of constellations. She uses the stars to keep track of time too so she doesn’t stay up too long. My little sister needs rest too when the darkness is done.
I would never take her out of the dark though, for the night sky is her blanket. The quiet is her peace. The hustle and bustle of a day would be too much. The darkness was made for dreaming and the day was made for containing the motion. There is a certain stillness, a certain peacefulness, that befalls the night that I think serenades my sister’s restless soul. Even as she pulls and tugs on the ocean searching for every little thing hidden in sandy beds, she lulls everyone to sleep too. Her push and pull, her search, her quiet light, fills hearts and souls with wonder. There is something about her endless tug towards nighttime and her urge to move and bloom amid the dark that fills the world with silence. The beautiful kind of silence that encourages reflection and processing.
She quiets the world and baths it in blue light. She looks, she wanders, and others wonder with her. It is a marvel how she can move so much and change constantly with her waxing and waning searching eye yet still create quiet that allows for restful dreams to enter the world. She makes space for all the thoughts and myriad mysteries the way that stars dispel light into outer space until little beams connect and constellations make a net across the world. All the little fingers of light from my sister and her starry eyed friends make little nets across the sky until the whole grand world is one big dream catcher. Maybe that constant reaching, the constant spreading of her small light, is what makes the world so still and peaceful. She extends her little glow so that everyone else can sit back and enjoy the show. She does the work of being bright so the rest of the land and all the creatures that inhabit it can simply rest knowing that a great big net in the sky is held safe and steady in my sister’s hands. That net is strong enough to catch all their hopes, miseries, dreams, worries, aspirations, fears, longings, whimsies, nonsensical wonders, beautiful messes, glorious minds, and spinning doubts.
Perhaps, on some deep level, the world knows that and that is why people let themselves fall into night and tuck in tight. Maybe that is why people close their eyes at night, so they no longer have to stare at the bleakness of the dark; they know the moon is there to guide everyone to the daylight. It is safe to dream and spin away into things only the deeper parts of a brain and the shadows know when there is a safety net of light in the sky. A constant consistent cycle sustains everything. My eager, watchful, mourning, mounting, believing, hoping, secret- keeping, sky- guiding, ever living, constantly changing sister keeps the night from becoming too dark. Her presence makes the peaceful night infinitely beautiful. The answer lies in her pock marked eye, and she whispers secrets on the soft layers of flower petals blooming at night and on the flutters of luna moths dragging their wings through crisp air. She is the motion that lulls, and the sound of nothing that soothes. She works so the world can rest and know that the night light in the sky will guide them home and keep them safe until the day breaks open the horizon.
I think people love me, the sun, but people adore the moon. The light and the mystery collide in so many ways when the transition from dusk to twilight happens and when dawn becomes the first ray of day break cracking open the sky. I am waking up now. Before, I was smothered under a pillow of darkness. I trusted my sister to put her arms around the world and take care of everything in the night. Now, she is fading. Her shift is over. She is sliding down across the sky with graceful turns and soft pirouettes. As she slowly goes down, the darkness becomes that soft gauzy veil. It becomes a lighter and lighter gray until I can see through it.
I climb. I use the mountains as stairsteps and hills are footholds. There. I crest. I stand tiptoe on the edge of the world. The blue of the day becomes my cape trialing out behind me. For a moment, for just one moment, I can see my sister. She is perched on the other edge of the world. We are universes away yet we share the same sky. She is catching her stars. She collects them slowly and with lazy outreaches of her arm. There is no rush to take the nightlights off their dark- time hangers. With each star that becomes unsuspended, I unclasp my little box and a ray of dawn races out across the sky to replace the spot where the star was taken. With each reach, my sister takes down a star and gently places it in her little wicker basket. Her collection grows, and she sinks down a little lower until it is just shiny standards of her iridescent hair trailing down after her. With each step my sister takes down from the sky, another beam of light is pulled out of my wooden box. The place that was left in shadow does not remain shaded as golden light from my dawning cascades across the sky. I keep ascending to the balcony of the world. I stretch out the light and extend my arms in a good morning embrace for the world.
In the last moment before my burning brilliance overtakes the world and establishes daytime across the ether, my sister lifts a silver-stained hand. She waves.
“Good day, brother” she whispers before pulling the netting of stars around her. It is time for her to rest.
“Good night, little sister,” I say. I raise up an arm in a greeting and goodbye. I give a little wave.
I wish for nothing but good dreams to come to her as she snuggles under her blanket of starlight and sweet- dream wishes.
The last beam of daylight fills the sky, the world uncurls, and all is awake. The little pockets of shadow that remain in the deepest valleys, the slight shadow clinging to the inside of a lily of the valley cup, and the edges of darkness that turn with the spokes of a bike wheel serve to illuminate the circles and triangles of daylight that flow over everything and remind me of what my sister’s stars are for. The balance. In each day, there is some darkness, but every night holds a moon and her stars. I dribble light and dunk gold rays in every crevice until every piece of the world shines and even broken edges gleam. I polish away the night, but I leave some shadow for the dreams to slip in. Little restful moments of a night watched over by a restless moon still linger as the world streams to busyness under my light. No two worlds are ever really separate.
The brightness is there whether under sun or moon. All the sky is full of light with the sun and the moon, along with her stars, to guide its turning; they fill the world and the souls left upon its surface for safe keeping with brilliance.