Surprises

Surprises are to be grateful for.

It was so clear last night! We stopped our rush to slow down and settle in for the night. We looked long and intently into the different star groups.

I remembered a night many decades past, just as clearly.

From my perspective, on a hill, part way up a ridge, in the Aux Arc’s, on my grandmother’s front lawn topped with an old quilt, we rested, and a beloved cousin taught me the names of the same star systems.

Sometimes, we would look to the field below, where our parents and Grandparents planted in the fields below, by the moon’s light.

Later, that night, long after we’d parted, while we slept in our own beds, some far from that place, rain came and watered in all the plantings.

This morning too, we woke to see the last of a morning’s easy rain.

Being grateful.