Copyright © 2022 Gordon Dawson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Book design and layout by Danielle Misché and the author.

Cover art from a painting Oregon Moon by E. L. Stewart.

Titles are type set in Monotype Corsiva. Text is set in Times New Roman.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3120-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3119-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3121-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022918105

Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/26/2022

For the children, whose light and insight fills the world.

Breathing in her smell, he kissed her, saw the pieces of the moon

coming up through her from the grass, so that in those places

she was translucent. It was a blue moon, that rare lunar occurrence

of every two or three years, the second full moon in a single month,

and they lay on the pieces of it, unafraid of its penetrating light.

David L. Lindsey

Spiral

Table of Contents

Crescent Moon

Stumbling Through

Winter World

Silver Thaw

The Dance Teacher

Tomorrow

Whispers

Misty

Questions

For Laurel, for Tal

December Child

Mail Carrier

Reunion

Without Nails

Winds of Winter

Inbound

Half Moon

Bradley Road Refuge

Fire Drill

It Isn’t Me

October Child

Rain

A Full Day

It Matters

Not Calling

Older But No Wiser

Looking Tired

Orange Moon

Some Say

Saving the Day

Seeing You

Gibbous Moon

Necanicum Nocturne

Blue Moon

Pearls From Childhood

July Son

Escape to Childhood

Certainty

Houseboat Concerto

Flashback

July in Yellow

The Gathering

The Visitor Who Stayed

Your Mother and Mine

Wandering by Moonlight

Full Moon

Little Sentinels

March Note

In The Canyon of Light

Marbles

May Fire

Backward Glance

A Mean Child

Beyond Borders

Emily, I Was Waiting

Kingfisher Lake

Spoken in Silence

The Spare Room

Just a Thought

Outside Late

Knowing How to Begin

Wind Child

Sleight of Hand

Remember Me

Crescent Moon

A person’s work is nothing but a long journey to recover,

through the detours of art, the two or three simple and great things

which first gained access to the heart.

Remember what you have seen, because everything forgotten

returns to the circling winds.

Navajo Wind Chant

Stumbling Through

Sometimes the world holds back time for you.

One minute, an hour, it doesn’t matter.

It is always enough, a gift no less precious than a day

of brilliant sun