Seattle Moonrise

Poem No. 171

Sometimes a moment will install itself in the theater of my memory with a certain… something.

Not clarity, exactly, nor intensity, but more like a quality Joan Didion referred to as a “shimmer around the edges.” Such moments don’t need to be particularly consequential. In fact, they tend not to be. They are often simple events whose personal meaning is only revealed to me later, by writing about them, usually in a poem.

Today’s poem explores one such shimmering moment:

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Seattle Moonrise

We rode the ferry together
and moved as one to the stern
to watch the moon rise
heavy and round above the city.

No one spoke for a long time,
because we were young and sure.

And since it seemed as though
anything at all could happen
in the oncoming years,
it felt, just then,
as if everything would.

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I like collecting these moments in poems — over time, they become a sort of emotional scrapbook or photo album.

And speaking of time: last week I shared a poem which had one word I spent nearly two years editing. This week’s poem is the polar opposite: it fell from my pen (in response to a February Poetry Adventure prompt) almost completely formed — an extremely rare thing for me — but only after the moment spent more than a decade as a quiet, persistently shimmering memory. Which I suppose is just a different way of saying this poem took a decade to write.

Please feel free to share this poem with anyone you think might enjoy it:

Thanks for reading,
~ A

P.S. — I’ve had quite a few new subscribers this week, which is lovely. (I think most of you found me because

Maya C. Popa

re-stacked one of my notes, which caused a rather alarming spike in traffic for my little newsletter! 🤣) Welcome everyone, and thank you all for subscribing to The Scribble & Jot! I’m thrilled to have you here. 🙏

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