The Kidlit Fall Writing Frenzy is a writing contest that I’m entering for the first time. Instead of a writing prompt, I was given a choice of image prompts, and I chose this one, a photo by Monstera Production on Pexels.com:

PUMPKIN MOON

Breathe deep. Can you smell that special scent that rides in on autumn’s golden coattails? Sweet and fragrant, equal parts fire and smoke, dry leaves and wet black dirt, tractor belch and wagon wheel grease, pumpkin pie and apple butter, all of it stirred by the wind and strong enough to spin your head around. Go ahead, have another whiff. There’s time enough before we move along.

Change hangs in the air like laundry on the line, and high above it all, shining like the high beams on night’s pickup truck, the Harvest Moon.

But if you’ve lived in these parts since tall trees were saplings, you know there’s another name for the Harvest Moon, a secret name. It’s passed down from grandfather to father to son, whispered in the corn rows, told in hay lofts and sugar shacks. Mothers tell their daughters as they tuck them in at night, sealing the secret with a kiss. If you stand on the edge of a wheat field cloaked in a blanket of stars, stand very still, you’ll hear the name rumble out from deep within the earth: the Pumpkin Moon.