Yesterday the sun came out to play
only briefly now and then on Shennong mountain.
In one of those moments where I could see
fifty feet in front of me on the trail, I suddenly met
the legendary Wild Man,
famous in this area, as much so as is
Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, or the Yeti.
He does not appear often to people,
there are very few reports of sightings
over the centuries,
and because I am only here briefly,
a tourist passing through China,
I felt doubly honored not only to see him
but to ask him to take a picture with me.
Amazingly, he understood English —
since he supposedly doesn’t even speak
any Chinese dialect — so we posed,
arms around each other’s shoulders,
and I snapped a selfie.
I asked him if he would like me
to email him a copy of the photo,
but he said he had no internet access
this high up – we were at nearly 8000 feet –
and of course he had no cell phone.
I asked him if it were okay to write about him,
and after pondering the idea for a moment,
he agreed that it would be all right,
since no one would believe me anyway,
would all say I’d used Photoshop or some such thing
to make it appear that I’d seen him.
He said he had to run
away from people again,
so we shook hands and parted ways.
He turned once to wave goodbye,
and then I was alone again on the misty trail.
When I arrived at the hotel,
I was anxious to post the photo on Facebook,
but when I looked for it on my phone
it was nowhere to be found.
* * * * *
Today’s word is
famous
Use it in a piece, or to inspire a piece, and then post it as a comment below. I would love to read what you write : )
Lanning Lee 