I wanted to say, “moon shadow,” but it wasn’t.  It was this morning, under unseasonably burning sun, and this salt-whitened, wind-whitened branch stuck out from the edge of the cliff, glowing, begging me to notice its artwork on the sand.

“Moon Shadow” is also the name of a song.  We were in the car for a few hours today, coming and going to an art fair, and listened to music from the late ’60s and early ’70s.  We were fortunate.  We came of age in the time of the strongest, most powerful music, music that stirred, music that incited, music that soothed, and music that still moves me viscerally.  I don’t need to understand the words or the complex structures of these ground-breaking artists; the emotional content literally reverberates at the gut level, wrenching and deepening and burning its wistful anguish into the soul.  They had grace, these musicians, and gave it to the world.