Struck by moonlight...

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gazed at the moon hanging above the mountain in Wales. Below it, over to the East, is the sea and on a night like this it will be crashing on the rocks at the beach, scurrying up the pebbles and tumbling them to roll with that slightly hollow sound they make as they are swished backwards and forwards by the crashing waves. Of course I can’t see or hear them from here, but I know that it’s happening just as I know that a fox has come down to the beach to watch a seal roll in the moonlight.

As usual after a spell of hot weather it is raining and the wind has got up. My tiny roof room is rocked by the gusts of wind and the rain thumps on the glass of the windows asking to be let in to whip and soak the curtains. Behind the glass the fields are black despite the moon and the sheep huddle in corners under the hedges. I can’t see them either, but I know they are there just as I know that the hares are leaping in the field as they catch raindrops in their wide open pink mouths.

The chimney stack looks so lonely made stark by the moon. It’s a lonely night, so it fits in well, and I can hear the plings as the raindrops fall on the new tin roof of our neighbours new shed. They must have put it up while we weren’t here and it sits invisible in their garden below. I can’t see the shed any more than I can see the fox or the seals, the sheep or the hares, but I know it is there just as I know that on a night such as this the villagers from long ago go about their business on the lane beneath my window.

Yes tonight, just as on so many nights, I am struck by the moonlight and my head turns. Reality and imagination become one as I drift on the wind – one minute a leaf tossed and scattered, the next an owl seeking a vole for my dinner. I become part of the landscape as I drift, a raindrop running down my window watching me as I doze under the covers, a gust of wind as I whip around the chimney stack and am blown away to the mountain, then on to the moon.

This place always does this to me. It makes me open, that is why I came here and I wonder what it will be like when I leave? Will the hares still leap and the seals still roll? Will I still tumble and toss on the wind and find myself in every drop of scattered rain that smashes against that window? Will I join the villagers in the lane stoically going about their business?

Will I?