SEEKING THE MOON

Naptime, my grandson splays 
on top of me, heart-to-heart, 
dreaming of his day—the moon

peeking from behind a wooded blockade.
Always, he searches for moon— 
in the bright sky, and in the haze.

And yesterday, he pointed at a wisp
of cloud, insisting it was the real deal
green cheese, a human face, celestial.

I wanted to be scientific, astronomical
explain how skittish clouds shift 
into shapes that may not really be, but he

kept pointing his small finger at the spot
barely visible through the maple tree
until I squatted into the scope 

of his view. My head tilted, 
I saw the crescent moon, smiling sideways
as if to say, I told you so. 
 
In the lunar cosmos, we imagined a perch
surveying the distant earth 
washed in splotches of green and blue 

No countries, or leaders, or borders. Imagine.
John Lennon had it right:
the moon, the cosmos, all of us

unheeded by gravity, unfractured by lies, 
living with stubborn belief in starry light. 


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D. Dina Friedman has published in many literary journals including Salamander, Rattle, The Sun, Mass Poetry, Chautauqua Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Cider Press Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Cold Mountain Review, Lilith, Negative Capability and Rhino and received six Pushcart Prize and two Best-of-the Net nominations. She is the author of two previous poetry chapbooks, Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press) and Here in Sanctuary, Whirling (Querencia Press). Dina’s fiction includes the short-story collection Immigrants (Creators Press) and two YA novels, Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar Straus Giroux). To learn more about Dina, visit her website at www.ddinafriedman.com. and subscribe to her blog on living a creative life in a creatively challenged universe at ddinafriedman.substack.com.