Each week on Wordless Wednesday, bloggers around the world post a photo they’ve taken that tells a story. If my photo brings to mind a memory or inspires your creative writing, I hope you’ll share a comment below.
©2014 Allyson Latta
Moon-struck
by Shirley Kolanchey
“How does the moon
hang in the sky?”
she asked expectantly,
her red pigtails
freckles
and five-year-old brown eyes
neatly framed by a
white pillow.
I looked
from her bedroom window
over the North Saskatchewan valley
(memories of past loves);
and saw it suspended
over the Rocky Mountains
(whiter and bleaker);
reflecting in Crimson Lake
while the loons cried;
rising from the Pacific ocean
on the California Coast;
saw it alone on the Mexican desert
(oblivious of our bus speeding along that hot night);
simultaneously with the Midnight Sun at Dawson City;
and while the waves lapped at my feet
in the Mediterranean Sea.
“I’ll explain it to you when
you are older”
(I hoped).
An era later
we watched the coloured TV,
one eye on the full moon
in the night sky.
Men on the moon!
The now sophisticated 11-year-old
did not ask,
was no longer impressed.
* * *
Scroll through more of my photos here.
And check out these contributions to Wordless Wednesday from some of my (not typically wordless) writer friends:
Elizabeth Yeoman (Wunderkamera)
Recent posts on writing
Using Creole, and Other Regional Dialects, in Writing, guest post by Lisa Allen-Agostini
Dipping My Toes in Grenadian Waters: My first residential writers’ retreat, guest post by Janet Weiss-Townsend
Will Come the Words (series): Author Catherine Gildiner’s creative spaces
Facebook for Writers: Connections, community, and meaningful coincidence, guest post by Elinor Florence
Memoir as Survival: On writing Lorenzo’s Heart, guest post by Jennifer Massoni Pardini
Lovely image, Allyson. The poem by Shirley Kolanchey is delightful.
Thanks, Cheryl. Shirley is one of my aunts — my dad’s youngest sister, and a great traveller. She wrote this poem many “moons” ago and I’ve always treasured it. I’m the little girl. Was.
I’m more impressed by the moon now than I was at eleven. 🙂
Oh that’s a wonderful story and poem to accompany the beautiful picture Allyson. I love that you are still impressed with the moon!
I think it was the red hair and freckles that gave it away. How wonderful that you have your aunt’s poem. It’s impossible to deny the magic of the moon, and even if your aunt said the girl was no longer impressed, she probably was deep inside.
The picture was plenty. That blue sky and the evergreens in the foreground — something about that tells me exactly what temperature the night is. I, too, love the moon. Never tire of seeing it.
But then you add a poem… and it’s so lovely that I propose that wordless days are opened to such beauty. And who says poems are words? Surely they’re way beyond that…
BTW, the buds on the evergreen, I was once told, are called ‘candles’. Anyone else know them by that name?
I love the poem as well as the photo. The part about seeing the moon from different places reminded me of a story a friend told me recently. As a lovestruck teenager she had a boyfriend in France who phoned her in Newfoundland and said in romantic tones: “It’s a full moon”. She exclaimed in amazement at the coincidence “It is here too!!”