Holy Saturday
The music plays. 80’s. Drama. Life.
Chimes. Dun. Chimes. Bam!
“The love I’m sending, ain’t makin’ it through to your heart—”
Doesn’t it just send you?
I think Jesus listened to Heart. I think they were His vibe.
I think I’m his vibe when I’ll let myself be for a moment.
By "be," I just mean, “be me.” Whatever that is.
It’s Holy Saturday (the day after Good Friday).
The moon is nearly full.
It’s waning.
Did you know that?
“Easter always occurs after the full moon of the vernal equinox.”
I can hear momma saying it to me. I don’t even know why we know that.
Just that we do.
I was born under a waning moon.
THE waning moon.
The waning Hunter’s moon.
It sounds regal, doesn’t it?
That’s not what’s happening now, while Jesus is in the grave.
I don’t actually know the name of this full moon.
Maybe it’s the sturgeon moon…
Or strawberry moon…
Or blue moon…
Or fuck, fuck me boots moon.
I’ve always been a little jealous of December’s—
“The cold moon.”
It has something, hasn’t it?
People born under a waning moon are supposed to value self-development and cooperation. We have a strong appreciation for beauty. We are attuned to justice, and our feelings are deep and complex, yadda yadda—
this is all per google AI, fyi.
Who knows “what” about all that bullshit.
I certainly don’t.
I look down at the string of lights on Ted Turner Dr from my balcony.
Some event at the Benz or State Farm has let out.
And I’m just out here with my plants (finally, thank God).
I don’t know about the events.
I just know that the moon is movin’.
Sailing across the sky like a crescent of cheese with a rat captain in a sea of darkness and diamond—I’m sure that’s a nursery rhyme.
Trauma and rats and sailing ships.
The moon moves behind Truist Tower the same way the sun does in the Winter.
My little private eclipse.
Maybe it moved this same way, past the pine trees when Papa asked Meme to marry him. In South Georgia, on the mule.
She refused him. (Smart girl.) She knew her worth.
That’s something I’m learning about myself.
She was worth more than the crickets at the bait store.
She wasn’t wriggling her legs to catch some sad crappie or bass on Lake Eufaula.
The world really does just keep on, don’t it?
I mean with or without you, on she spins.
Like a slow-pitch softball, whipped towards the bat.
Like the three-pointer, in the women’s Final Four, seconds before the buzzer.
It just moves on forward.
It pushes the needle.
The wind is cold on my balcony.
Maybe it’s like Lady Liberty.
Just green.
Above the sea.
Watchin’ it all.
(This isn’t political, don’t worry.)
Do you ever wonder?
Wonder about what she’s seen?
What has the tide brought her?
Trash.
Lost whales.
Immigrants.
So. Many. Immigrants.
The Easter moon creeps.
That waning moon.
What has she seen?
A man on a cross?
The dinosaurs?
The cold of the ice age? (the real, “cold moon.”)
The cruelty and kindness of man.
Pecan pie, fried chicken, crickets on the back porch, the laughter of an egg hunt, the sobs of the heart broken—
and yet, she sails on.
Even above me on my little balcony.
The same dance she danced 38 years ago, on a Friday, in October, in her waning.
Just dancin’.
Just movin’ right on—
not behind the Truist building (that wasn’t here then).
I’m lucky—
To sit here.
On this good Friday, Holy Saturday, beneath the waning moon.
To know that waning, or crescent, or new—
there’s still good things down the line.
That the stone rolls back.
That flowers bloom,
And the moon moves,
And the cars honk on Ted Turner Dr.,
that the world keeps spinning.
And that’s it—
and that’s enough.