First Full Moon
I remember seeing my first full moon. I wasn’t much older than five. Home before dark was a general rule and I was headed in that general direction. The air was warm and the sky although darkening was still full of color. I was walking through a grassy yard when I spotted a giant moon floating just above a neighbor’s dog house. A red painted classic house shape taller than the fence with three steps up to the dog hole. I don’t remember a dog. I climbed up onto the house and straddled the peak to watch the moon slide up into the sky. I could make out the man in the moon that neighborhood kids had mentioned but I was more akin to the witch carrying fire wood told in a story by my grandmother. She would joke that we came from a long line of witches. “Or was it bitches?” she’d say. Smiling, winking, laughing. “Hur hur hur hur hur,” she sounded. Apparently, it was one of my first words spoken as a baby. The only other time I heard the word bitch was when my mother was fed up with me. I never understood what it meant but I knew it wasn’t good. The notion of casting spells made me want to be a witch though.
The witch in the moon, I imagined walking towards me. I recall being close to tears similar to when I heard my first live orchestra. The hair on my arms lifted like the moon was a magnet. I felt the earth swell and rotate under me, and the dog house ride the crest, me holding on tight. “Susan.” I heard my father call my birth name. I insisted on being called my middle name, Jane, like Jane Goodall, Jane Eyre, Jane and Tarzan. With his booming voice I could hear him from a block away sounding off. He was in the Canadian Army. A commanding officer. “Susan.” He couldn’t see me. I sat upright, real still, real quiet. My ears rang. “Susan.” Stretching out each second, lingering, I watched as the moon brightened, got sucked up into the tall sky and diminished to the size of a lozenge. The witch dissolved. “Susan.” Everything glowed grey. His tone deepened. “Susan.” Louder. “Susan.” I shrank. Slid off the dog house and ran home.
by Jane Edberg
Jane Edberg is a published writer working in poetry, flash non-fiction and memoir. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts. She is a retired art professor who taught Art Appreciation, Photography and Design at various Universities and spent twenty years full-time at Gavilan College. She is currently working on a hybrid memoir of images and prose called “The Fine Art of Grieving” and authors a blog and Facebook page by the same title.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefineartofgrieving/
Website: https://www.thefineartofgrieving.com/
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