that's 'retha franklin

If you look up in her right, top corner, you'll see she's waning. A year of moons represents the seasons of life. Each moon, a time for being about a particular thing. This year's harvest is in, and as autumn waxes and days grow cold and winter approaches, dependence is on what was accomplished under other moons.
My love and I met under a waxing harvest moon. A year later, overlooking the Tygart Valley, from high up on the hill, she sang, "shine on, shine on..." to me in the romance of evening as the round disc rose to our left and cast its beams on the river below. Cast our shadows over top each other on the flagstone patio. It was our 19th harvest moon - our first together. Two lovers, side by side, a single shadow.
I always cried when she sang to me. Silly, flirty, orangey, songs. She could look eye to eye and sing without batting. I envied that.
"What'll I do, with just a photograph, to tell my troubles to?"
"Crazy, he calls me, sure I'm crazy, crazy in love am I."

We were married under the harvest moon, two days past full. We had a moon song sung at the wedding. "The same moon shines, the same wind blows, for both of us... let us cling together as the years go by..."
Years have gone by, I have clung. Clung to the orangeness of those songs. Depended on it to prime the purple flow.
Hey, 19. That was our age when first we shared those moon-lengthened days in the early dusk of autumn. Hey, 19. Those are the years we've been yoked. Side by side like Clydesdales bringing on the party. Side by side like oxen, toiling in the field. Each dependent on the other. Celebrating. Mourning. Laughing. Learning. Forgetting. Hiding. Seeking. Dying. Being born.

Since Friday, the moon has been there at dusk to light the evening. At equinox, the full moon rises at nearly the same time each evening. To chase the unsurety of darkness. To cast long, defined shadows, to illuminate the mist in the river bottom, to backlight a single fruit tree.

It took me 19 harvest moons to find you, with a glint of orange hanging on. Look for me in this one. That's where you'll find me, all purple in the moonlit twilight.
Walk with me into this light.