Hawkmoon

Like a rhythm unbroken
Like drums in the night
Like sweet soul music
Like sunlight
I need your love

The moon is in the waxing gibbous phase, heading into a Full Wolf Moon that will arrive on New Year's Day. It's been cold here; frigid, actually. And this was the first day I stepped outside the house since my husband and I returned from visiting my family on the day after Christmas.

It snowed, you see: a couple of fluffy white inches overnight into the morning. And so my husband and I went out after it had mostly stopped and shoveled out the driveway, cleared the snow off the deck.

When the moon rose late in the afternoon, pale against the blue sky, I had to go out and see it. It had been snowing off and on, and I hoped to catch the ever-elusive shot of snow against the moon.

I had my camera super-zoomed in on the moon, and I felt and heard the rise of a large-winged creature that burst into flight to my left, then flew across the moon. It was so quick that all I could do was stand there with my mouth gaping.

The wild, dark figure was a hawk, the same one I'd spotted the afternoon before, perched on a tree over Gremlin's grave, behind the meadow. I ran for my camera then, too, of course; but I missed that shot too. When I came back, the hawk had disappeared. Like it had never existed. Had I dreamed it? But no, here it was again.

I went out later in the evening for more pictures of the moon, as I always do. When the moon is big, it whispers to me in a silvery voice that I cannot resist: Come and see.

I snagged this shot while sitting on a chair on our front porch, my left elbow anchored against the back of the chair, otherwise: free-hand, as always. FREEZING hands; you could say that too.

So here, on one of the coldest nights of the year, is a close-up shot of the moon waxing full, heading toward the Full Wolf Moon, but it will always be the hawkmoon to me.

The soundtrack is a tune called Hawkmoon 269 from what is probably my favorite U2 album, and I'm including two versions: one a live track I had not heard before I stumbled upon it on YouTube this morning, the other the beloved version from Rattle and Hum. Some of its lyrics appear above.