Image: Nasa

earthrise is a poem inspired by the first photographs of earth taken from space and is one of two of Carolyn Waudby’s poems published in the winter edition 2022 of Orbis.

The photographs were taken by the crew of the 1968 Apollo mission and profoundly changed our perceptions of the planet we live on. earthrise also references French surrealist poet Paul Eluard, whom Waudby studied as an undergraduate student.

The translated phrase ‘the earth is blue like an orange’ was written by Eluard in 1929 in L’Amour La Poésie, decades before man had reached the moon. In the 1920s, an orange was a rare and precious fruit.

A second poem in Orbis #202 is Elder – one of a series of poems on the river Don in Sheffield, Waudby wrote for Off The Shelf Festival. The Elder tree is one of a number of plants growing on the river’s banks and the poem draws on its folklore.

earthrise

after Paul Eluard


pale wasteland
white cheek of moon

left, the marbled eye
lidded

they have emerged from the far side

Anders gazes
shouts for colour film

earth    blue
like an orange