Tissue Paper Moon

In 1996 I moved from Kansas City, MO to Phoenix, AZ to take a job that soon proved to be a step toward something greater rather than a destination.  For years I had experienced a call to ministry, specifically pastoral ministry in a congregational setting.  With a strange mixture of naivete and boldness, I sought a position as Associate Minister in a long-established, vibrant congregation in Tempe, AZ, and began enrollment in seminary with plans to seek ordination in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  My immersion into ministry was just that.  Within my first month on staff we experienced the death of three matriarchs of the congregation.  I was blessed to help officiate at all three memorial services, and my life was changed forever when I was present with two of the women at their deaths.  Precious.  Sacred.  This profound initiation into ministry confounded me and woke me in the mornings with heightened sensitivities.  One day the following poem poured from my fingertips after my morning exercise.  It is especially meaningful now that I am a tissue paper woman.

Tissue Paper Moon
Linda Miller
9/18/1997

A tissue paper moon monitors my morning run along the canal.

As she greets me and I watch her watching me,
I find myself wondering what she saw last night
when she was brighter... denser... fuller...
when she governed the sky, dressed in stunning silver.

Delicate now... lacey... ethereal...
she is no less beautiful than before.
Perhaps more.

I round the corner to enter my apartment and suddenly
there she stands before me
suspended on a field of brilliant blue
in the space between the palms. 

She bows graciously
to her younger brother, Sun --
strong and full of new energy --
now commanding the other sky
behind me.

She looks so wise and seems to be smiling.

There is little time. 
I urgently want to ask her,
"Tell me, please, what did you see when the sky was yours alone? 
What do you know? 
Tell me quickly before you go."