
(c) June 2012 Emma E. Glennon
Lately, as I have pondered assorted metal hues, my far-away daughter has been taking photographs steeped in gold.
Just as Fields of Gold has a lovely version sung in a female voice; Yeats’ Song of Wandering Aengus (which is in fact a poem) has been given a female voice.
When I was a high school senior, I enlisted the help of many friends in painting a mural–which somehow has not faded–high up in the school’s entryway. It has bright rainbow colors and is segmented (in a very then-mod way) with scenes from nature and snippets of favorite quotes.
I notice now that, in keeping with my personality–and nicely dovetailing with the prior decade’s outsized colors and cartoon shapes–my painting style was one of clear, bright-line distinctions among colors, not the light and shading and nuance of my daughters’ paintings and photographs.

One of the mural’s quotes is from Yeats and accompanies a bright painted sun, referencing “The silver apples of the moon,/The golden apples of the sun.”
Went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

I have always loved Yeats. He has supplied me with much of the wisdom which I have recalled on a daily basis through most of my life. My particular favorite: “Before us lies eternity; Our souls/ Are love and a continual farewell.” Thanks for the post and the poetry! Hope you are all doing well!
Beautiful quote that I had missed. Thank you, Wendy.