Moon

He came in tonight after nighttime walk to find me making up beds.

“Here,” he said, handing me an invisible tray and climbing up onto his bed. “It’s full of moon cookies and moon pies. The magic moon gave it to me, after I lifted the magic oven down out of the sky.”

“Why did you lift the magic oven out of the sky?”

“Oh, it needed to be done.”

“I’m never going to be able to eat all of these,” I said, putting the tray down on the bed. I selected a cookie. “This one is half-black, half-white. I’m going to eat the dark until I have a crescent.” I took a big bite.

“Mine is all dark, representing the new moon,” he said, taking one for himself, and then another. “This one is a full moon, but I’m eating it down to a crescent.”

I quoted,
The moon’s the North Wind’s cookie,
He eats it day by day,
Until there’s but a rim of scraps
That crumbles all away.

The North Wind–

“No, it’s the South Wind.”

The South Wind is a baker,
He kneads clouds in his den
And bakes a crisp new moon
That greedy North Wind eats again.*

“Greedy North Wind would eat all of these moon pies and moon cookies,” he said. “Come on, can we have some bathtime reading?”

*Vachel Lindsay