Underneath the lamplight.

The moon looks so conspicuous sitting in a sky that seems to be otherwise empty. No stars visible, no clouds. Just a velvety, royal blue backdrop with a pearl lying on it much the way in which a pearl might be displayed in a jeweller's shop, except that it would more likely be a string of pearls rather than a single pearl. A single pearl wouldn't be much use. So there it sits and I look at it. My eyes notice it first and then my heart and eventually my soul stirs. I'm drawn into the spell it casts and I soon forget the cold air of the night that begins to anaesthetise my skin as it brushes against it. The moon doesn't fire arrow-like rays of light towards earth as the sun does; it sends light pulsing through space and it falls on the earth like a sheet, maybe a shroud. I think back to the same moon in a different sky, a sky unpolluted by the garish, synthetic light of cities or by the dust of industry, the ancient sky that was the tent I played under as a child. As I look up I start to hear cicadas and other sounds of the night. The moon reflects off the waters of the lake at the foot of our mountain and my head starts to fill with the smells of burning and the distant rhythm of drums. I am alone again, wearied by new people who want to be my friends. As I stare at the moon it changes from being an Irish moon back into being an African moon then changes further as it synchronises it's pulsing to the beat of my memory-choked heart. The moon fuses with my heart, they distil into a drop, a single pearl perhaps, of pure emotion suspended in eternity.