A Half Moon and Other Small Things

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Susan HERE at her blog Chicken Spaghetti. Thank you for hosting, Susan!

This week I will share a photo I took one evening this summer of a perfect half moon. The moon is very big, with a diameter of 2,159.2 miles, about 1/4 the size of Earth. But it is 238,855 away from our Earth and so it looks very small as I gaze up at it from my driveway. 


Half-moon suspended
held in view by gravity
half lit, half hidden

© Janice Scully

I would not consider the moon a small thing, just a large object that happens to be far away.

Recently an on-line magazine was looking for poems about small things. So I thought about things much much smaller than the moon, things that I encounter here on earth. I wrote a poem and sent it. My poem wasn’t chosen, it’s short and straight forward. I revised it some and will share it here.

SMALL THINGS 


A seedling 
in a forest,
a raindrop 
in a lake,
a firefly in the night,
snow, a single flake.

The little bird that chatters
every stone, or flower or bee.

On Earth all small things matter 
so we protect them, 
you and me. 

© Janice Scully 2024

Thank you, Susan, for hosting. Best wishes to all the amazing teachers and librarians who are returning to school.

10 thoughts on “A Half Moon and Other Small Things”

  1. Your poem about the small things is lovely, Janice – ordinary things we can all relate to as being part of something much larger. Thank you for sharing.

  2. Lovely pic of our dear Moon…And yet if one were to look upon her from say the edge of the Milky Way, it would seem a very small thing indeed! (I love thinking about perspective!) Thank you for your lovely poem! xo

    1. Irene, your death poem is touching, a topic that always gets us wondering about this not yet known to us experience. And as for musical instruments, they are simple mechanical devices. Pianos are just strings and little hammers. ❤️

  3. I love moon poems, Janice, & your poem taking note of “half”, plus the “small things” shows how much we need to pay attention! They need noticing, too! I love the ending!

  4. Yes to protecting the small things! Yes to every small action we can take to protect our planet!

  5. Great catch with your camera’s eye…that IS a perfect half moon. And, I like your small things poem. It’s sweet and cozy.

  6. Ah, the meter of your small poem is perfect. I enjoyed reading it aloud. Sweet message too. I like how you drew together the moon looking small and the truly small things in your poem.

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