There is a hill near my home that I often climb at night. The noise of the city is a far-off murmur. In the hush of the dark I share the cheerfulness of crickets and confidence of owls. But it is the drama of the moonrise that I come to see. For that restores in me a quiet and clarity that the city spends too freely.

From this hill I have watched many moons rise. Each one has its own mood. There have been broad, confident harvest moons in autumn; shy, misty moons in spring; lonely, white winter moons rising into the utter silence of an ink-black sky and smoke-smudged orange moons over the dry fields of summer. Each, like fine music, excited my heart and then calmed my soul.

We, who live indoors, have lost contact with the moon; still it tugs at our minds. If we unexpectedly encounter the full moon, huge and yellow over the horizon, we are helpless but to stare back at its commanding presence. And the moon has gifts to bestow upon those who watch.

I learned about its gifts one July evening in the mountains. My car had mysteriously stalled, and I was stranded and alone. The sun had set, and I was watching what seemed to be the bright-orange glow of a forest fire beyond a ridge to the east. Suddenly, the ridge itself seemed to burst into flame. Then, the rising moon, huge and red and grotesquely misshapen by the dust and sweat of the summer atmosphere, loomed up out of the woods. Dogs at nearby farmhouses barked nervously, as if this strange light had wakened evil spirits in the weeds.

But as the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose; the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of the horizon, full chested and round and the color of Ivory, the valleys were deep shadows in the landscape. The dogs, reassured that this was the familiar moon, stopped barking. And all at once I felt a confidence and joy close to laughter.

I return often to the rising moon. I am drawn especially when events crowd ease and clarity of vision into a small corner of my life. This happens often in the fall. Then I go to my hill and await the hunter's moon, enormous and gold over the horizon, filling the night with vision.

And odd things happen in such moments on that July night, I watched the moon for an hour or two, and then got back into the car, turned the key in the ignition and heard the engine start, just as mysteriously as it had stalled a few hours earlier. I drove down from the mountains with the moon on my shoulder and peace in my heart.

An owl swoops from the ridge top, noise-less but bright as flame. A cricket shrills in the grass. I think of poets and musicians. Of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and of Shakespeare, whose Lorenzo declaims in The Merchant of Venice, How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!/ Here will we sit and let sounds of music/ Creep in our ears. I wonder if their verse and music, like the music of crickets, are in some way voices of the moon. With such thoughts, my citified confusions melt into the quiet of the night.