While driving to an early morning ultrasound
Because the doctors saw a
Funky black spot they couldn’t identify
On the mammogram

I see the setting Wolf Moon
And feel delight warm through my body
Just the way hot chocolate does
On a cold winter day.

The full moon plays peek-a-boo
As it hides – then emerges! –
From behind the tall trees
That developers haven’t yet torn down

How beautifully serene, I tell myself
A perfect alabaster circle
Hanging low in the soft pink sky of early morning
Before sunrise brashly upstages it

The way I say, Look at the moon! reminds me of a journey
Driving around the Scottish isle of Shetland
My guide, Roy, kept pointing out the window of his car
Exclaiming, Look at the sheep!

Sheep sheep everywhere
Dotting the rocky countryside
Drinking from troughs
Made from overturned bathtubs

At night, sheep grazing in clumps on the hill
Behind my hotel window
I see them, luminescent
Reflecting the moonlight

At the time, I didn’t understand – and didn’t ask –
Why Roy was so insistent about those damn sheep
But today, 25 years later, after a benign diagnosis
Maybe he was trying to tell me

To take in all of life
The little things, the quiet things
The simple unadorned things … like sheep grazing
And just be glad.