Moon and Star

[rejectomorph]

The clouds to the west parted for a while this evening, and we got to see the crescent moon and Venus, only a few degrees apart on a horizontal line, and very bright. In December, the waxing crescent lies flat and resembles a boat, and I could easily imagine Venus as a marker light toward which it was riding, the dim sail of earth-shine above the glowing hull bellied round by an astral wind. It skimmed the tops of a row of shimmering pines, and then both ship and star vanished in a high bank of fog. I listened intently, but could hear no sound of waves.