In the firefly warmth of a summer evening, I stand on the back deck looking for the moon. Backlighting the passing clouds, it hides behind three tall pines. It’s been months since I looked at the stars, though it’s felt like years. A plane slowly winks across the western sky. The bigness of it all and the languishing late night hour suggests another small pour of this heavy red from a region in France I’ll probably never visit. Soon the doors in the houses will all be closed and this part of the world will have long since gone to bed. In this moment, it’s just me and the stars and the winking plane and this coy buck moon lighting up the tender night
and one last glass of wine.