"The Boy with a Moon and Star on His Head"

Tuesday’s election ushered-in a new moment of change for the nation. Then, almost as if by grand design, my family awoke to a few inches of snow the following morning. The powder wiped the northern slate clean, yet somehow, along this region called the Hi-line, the golden-white fields were limited to Glacier County – the only region of the north central Montana political map to turn blue the previous evening. The snow lasted for only that twenty-four hour period and I’m not one to believe in blessings, but I did stop and consider the gesture as appreciation.

Now, however, it is Sunday. The first fresh week as it starts after the election and so far nothing of depressing consequence has happened. There were no riots, there were no assassinations. There was only this humble resignation muddled with silent relief from my red-hued compatriots.

Under these thoughts and safely-missed illusions, I began this first new day of the week, listening to the album “Catch Bull at Four” by Cat Stevens.

"The Boy with a Moon & Star on His Head" by Cat Stevens

A gardeners daughter stopped me on my way, on the day I was
To wed
It is you who I wish to share my body with she said
Well find a dry place under the sky with a flower for a bed
And for my joy I will give you a boy with a moon and
Star on his head.
Her silver hair flowed in the air laying waves across the sun
Her hands were like the white sands, and her eyes had
Diamonds on.
We left the road and headed up to the top of the
Whisper wood
And we walked till we came to where the holy magnolia stood.
And there we laid cool in the shade singing songs and
Making love...
With the naked earth beneath us and the universe above.
The time was late my wedding wouldn’t wait I was sad but
I had to go,
So while she was asleep I kissed her cheek for cheerio.
The wedding took place and people came from many
Miles around
There was plenty merriment, cider and wine abound
But out of all that I recall I remembered the girl I met
cause she had given me something that my heart could not
Forget.
A year had passed and everything was just as it was a year
Before...
As if was a year before...
Until the gift that someone left, a basket by my door.
And in there lay the fairest little baby crying to be fed,
I got down on my knees and kissed the moon and star on
His head.
As years went by the boy grew high and the village looked
On in awe
They’d never seen anything like the boy with the moon and
Star before.
And people would ride from far and wide just to seek the
Word he spread
I’ll tell you everything I’ve learned, and love is all...he said.


I pass through life less as a visionary than an actual man, lonely for the past, pitiful yet anxious for the potential future. I miss my children, though they are within arm’s reach, I long for my partner, though I can still hear her in the next room. I wonder where the next painting will come from as I travel the outstretched prairie shadowed by the Rockies to the west and the Sweetgrass Hills to the northeast. I may confuse my left with my right - but never my true direction... it is bound to me where a soul should be. - North