Am I the Moon?

She is the wolf, baying at the moon.  She cannot reach it, but it comes to her every day.  Her want to be with it grows and grows, until she convinces herself that it's not her that wishes for the moon, but the moon that needs her.  She runs and runs, howling all the time, but gets no closer.

What is the moon?  Well, that is no simple question.  The moon is many things; a father or mother, child or sibling; it could be a foreign land, or a hard-sought career; it could even be an unrequited love or personal riches.  The point is not what the moon is now, but what it cannot be.  It is what is unobtainable, whether that be now or forever, and the wolf finds themselves consumed by the singular desire to have it, despite knowing it can never be.

I am but the rain.  I grant the reprieve, however short, masking the moon for a moment, just the time to wonder about everything else.  The shadows become aware of each other, the wolf wonders if the moon that hides itself is worth its laments.  I fall upon the mountains, and become the river.  To those that come to see me, I grant a truth: I bring a reflection, the way to see oneself that, perhaps, they have not seen before.

The wolf came to the waters to find her reflection, and the sustenance of the river.  I am but a flow; I follow the path where it may lead.  I do not know where I might go, but I know the end, when I must join the others once again and become indiscernible, until the day I reach the sky once more and begin again.

The wolf runs with me.  I do not know if its for what I showed her, or what I can provide her, or if she simply loves what I am.  She has not forgotten the moon, but she does not let it consume her; when she has the river, she does not feel alone, does not feel the need of the moon, but instead tries to find herself along the banks.  I can only hope the path will wind, so that we may have more time together, so that I can watch her run even though I do not know why she does.

Too soon, I see the shore, the beaches that tell me my journey will be ending.  The wolf still runs even as I join the ocean, runs into the waters in hopes of trying not to lose that which had become so dear.  I lose sight quickly, as I am dragged into the everything.  I wait to begin again, and I wonder: what will the wolf think of me?  Will she believe I left her?  Will she stay by the ocean, wondering what she could have done?  Will she wait for the rain once again?

Or will she return to where she once was, howling at the moon?  There was once a reflection, and now there is only the wolf.  So what have I become?