Moonlit Radiance

I live a double life.  I first found out when I was eleven or twelve.  Coming out of the physician's office, I saw for the first time trees' leaves rustling in the crisp breeze and wisps of cloud set just so in the dazzling blue sky.  The clarity which this new world held was so intense, I did not know what I had been missing before I got my glasses.

Tonight, I hiked to one of the highest hills in the county and followed the expanse of mountain that stretched up and down the valley.  The moon captured my gaze.  And, as Clark Kent removes his glasses to become what he truly is, I pocketed my own and watched the moon's boundaries melt into a radiant haze.  I entered an Impressionist painting without taking a single step.  There were no poppies smeared across the subtle hill, no towering poodle-puffed trees, no unidentified characters about which to dream.  Instead, a breeze smoothed my naked eyes with raw reality.  Crickets' clicking chorus strummed louder than before.  Brutus's big black paws crunched leaves with more ferocity.  Frogs croaked more intently from the trees silhouetted against the twilit sky.

And then I did something I haven't done for a long time.  I walked home without my glasses.  I followed the blurred fence and tree lines, walked with careful steps as the moon lit my path, and allowed other senses to divulge the secrets of this realm.  It's amazing how such a simple endeavor can bring the fringes of fear into the periphery.  But, I bolstered my faith and kept walking, knowing not the path's rise and fall under my feet, but the hopeful beacon of home's porch lights that loomed ahead.