Strubie in late 2021 was a round-headed four month old. Perfect, solid and placid, he was happy to sit and stare at my unScottishly dark skin, making fat-fisted, uncoordinated attempts at my tantalizing dangle earrings. Devoid of board books in the holiday house, I whispered the words to GOOD NIGHT MOON into his little elfin ear, unsurprised that the words came unprompted (although his parents were well impressed). Ironic, as it’s a book I’ve always disliked, especially the garish cover palette. Isn’t that the way it goes with things that bug us? Songs that we hate we can reproduce, pitch-perfect. This surreal bomb of green, yellow, and red has seared itself into the American consciousness as a classic, with its supposed-to-be-sleepy bunny glowering out from the page, vanishing socks, the cryptic old lady, congealed mush and an ominous… “Nobody.” GOOD NIGHT MOON is the weirdest little beast of a book, but I’m already planning to get the commemorative postage stamps. This book will never not going to remind me of a perfect, round-headed baby, born at the first light after a long, dark time.
Struan
time is a river
though no two thaws flood the same
mud season arrives
slick and cold. inconvenient
proof of life after life. hope
