We slip from our horses atop a slope facing West: below only desert till the Sierra outstretched. 

We make fire watching dusk transcend over the hills: tones transform until the world, bare, is draped by darkness.

The crackle of our fire against so much silence. As we breathe it in, a cello note inside us from a brand new crescent moon, rising from the south, is aglow in orange loom.

Amber slivers the upright crescent, a torch held up by the World’s hand though all that darkness, catching, collecting the reflections of all our fires, of our sun, its tenderness easing the heat, softening rage. 

After riding under so many moons, we now realize that change will come. 

We break camp in the morning and head to the valley below, emboldened by that glow, riding wherever we must go.