Mark Gresham | 10 AUG 2026
The child pointed at the sky over the backyard and said, “Run away, Moon!”
The moon did not argue. It simply flew across the sky, taking the child’s hand lifted to its luminous whiteness, as if this had been the arrangement all along.
In rural America, the moon is watched. It is measured. It is given names according to the season and the phase. It is rarely ordered about by a person still small enough to be carried.
Here the child issued a command and the sky obeyed.
I stood on the grass and watched the two of them cross the dark—the small hand and the ancient light moving together as if the distance between earth and heaven had always been negotiable.
The father looked up, laughed once, and said, “She’s been doing that since she could talk.”
No one corrected the child. No one explained the physics. The moon was simply allowed to run.
Later the child returned, empty-handed, and sat next to her father. She said the moon had work to do on the other side of the world and would be back tomorrow.
I believed her.
In this country, even the moon keeps its appointments with children.
I have started watching the sky more carefully at night.
Just in case it needs a second set of instructions. ■
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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