LAYERED LUNAR LIGHT

QUEEN OF THE MOON / 2018 / COLLAGE / RUSSELL C. SMITH

Jeannie Nocturne lived on a side street cottage, in a secreted away section of Old Town. She loved her neighborhood and often thanked the visible stars glowing directly above her backyard. Full moon bathing on her deck – often staying up until too-late-o’clock – during the weeks when summer turned to autumn. Empathy to spare, imagination to explore – breathing in her wild slice of the city within the urban wilderness. With open-minded wonder, she’d created a bubble of safety in her heart. When not welcoming nature with her whole being – Jeannie could be found living inside her mind, within the pages of novels, or keeping track of her dreams and world-shifting ideas in a lined hardback journal. Writing by candlelight late into the night, at her canary yellow kitchen table. “Hey you,” her friend Sally Noir said, from Jeannie’s open back door. “Care to share the moon with me? I brought my bathing suit.” As if in agreement, the neighborhood raven spoke up in a woody-throated scrawk. “Rosie Raven agrees, you should come out while moon bathing’s the best,” Jeannie said. Knowing at a heart level the world may be mad and out of whack, but wise women found time to revel in night’s delights. Soon, early morning bird conversations would wake up the neighbors, and star gazing would be placed back in the cupboard. “Yes, to these moments when laughter arrives on universal clock time, far below layered lunar light,” Sally said, walking outside with a bottle and two glasses.