Debris Falling
by  Mimi Moriarty

Last night some kind of debris fell to earth.
We saw it burn apart, sparking embers
from spectacular space junk, a stream
awkward in the sky burning under a half-moon,
its trajectory more like an arc, a bridge.
She was the one who saw it first, my daughter.

This was the night before she left, my daughter
packing her bags paused at the edge of the earth,
all youth and expectation, as if a wooden bridge
had been placed before her.  She saw the embers
as an omen, a portent shining down from the     moon
onto the gentle waters of her spring-fed stream.

Only a mother knows what lies within the stream,
she has walked barefoot on rocks that no daughter
could imagine, knelt and prayed to Mother Moon
to bless this voyage through the sluice of cool earth,
to remain vigilant as the skies rain down embers
so hot they could ignite her last connection, this bridge.

I have been dreaming nightly of a rough-hewn bridge.
It stands in the woods, arched over a muddy stream.
A child still in diapers crosses the span, embers
shooting from her hair.  The child looks like my daughter.
She races back and forth, as if her path on this earth
stopped at the edge of the bridge.  She is moon-

lit, shadows from the hemlock a warning from the moon.
This is what I see when I wake, she has crossed the bridge,
forged a path into the deep woods, embraced the new earth
with a conviction I can only imagine.  I sigh at the stream
with motherly concern, anxious for the safety of my daughter,
no debris falling from the sky, safe from the embers

that shoot from stars as they blaze unencumbered, embers
falling furiously, sparking the woods.  I petition the moon
to stand in my stead, to radiate light on my daughter
navigating the divide, that awkward, trembling bridge
that connects the two, overcomes the rocky stream
that flows through the heart of the woods, the loamy earth.