Laguna Negra, Santuario El Cañi, Chile. Valentine´s Day

Dear Mom,

I saw mountains on the moon last night.

I was just about to drift off to sleep beside the shore of a Chilean Lake when that fat, old battlefield came peeking over the granite to the southeast.

The umbrella top of an ancient Araucaria Tree was silhouetted perfectly by the three quarter moon, and I reached into my pack for my binoculars, this certainly being an occasion deserving of a closer look.

I think it was more startling not to see the long neck and head of a Brontosaurus go drifting in front of the moon than if it had.

Once clear of that Jurassic Tree I could see fields of craters and long, shadowed valleys. On the upper left side, where the earth´s shadow had taken its bite, I saw a frozen range of silver mountains with a backdrop of infiniti.

It was like one earring in a set that I´ve always meant to give you. Finally a gift deserving of your love.

It was neither a holding nor a pouring moon, as you´ve told me about from your midwive´s folklore. No, it seemed postpartum if anything, still swollen with milk for the suckling heavens, or maybe for me, or at least for that night-black brontosaurus.

Momma, you who greet people at the gates of the world, I wanted to give you that moon with its sunlit mountains. Trouble is I couldn´t quite reach it, so instead I´ve written you this letter, and will probably continue giving you Earthly attempts at earrings that could never say enough.