Harvest Moon

Heavens knows why we here call this moon Harvest Moon also. Weird habit as we are going into summer and after six months of dry have absolutely nothing to harvest but we do. Periodically, I recall that it is a Northern centric world......but that being so

and given that it is for the Southern hemisphere the vernal or spring equinox in a few days....

Moonrise was spectacular this evening. Lifting just above the horizon before true dark and blood red from the haze and dust in the atmosphere. Standing out in the warm evening the frogs seemed to form a chorus heralding the return of longer days and warmth and fertility. Presently though, we are in the deep dry, six months of no rain with the temperatures rising sucking the last remaining moisture out of plant and beast and man. In another month or so perhaps we will have built up to the first of the summer thunderstorms. For now we hunker down, dusty, sky white with haze and hold on. Early mornings smell of the faintest edge of damp on dry, dry grass.

This evening I reflect how often my life has seemed arid and bone dry, where even the deep wells have run dry, and I have not seen the promise of rain and green and verdant, abundant growth that the full summer holds.

Hope. Lost, scattered like ash before the wind.

Tonight I remember to hope.