One-Eyed Shepherdess
Neil Armstrong stepped down from the landing craft Eagle
One step into dust − one step farther from Earth −
To our nursery-rhyme Moon with her cows and her fiddles,
Who ratchets the tides at each delta, each firth.
None imagined what steps on that surface would augur
That we're coming to take from her all she's worth.
From their test pilot training at the Edwards' lake bed
Our new-minted astronauts headed to space
In the mold of old empires, of air force, of navy,
With political dominance inked on each face.
We will lay waste our planet, we'll need a new homestead,
So we'll pounce on the Moon when our air turns to paste.
She is covered in dust, with a positive charge
That adheres, like lice, to all but herself.
Our Moon is quite black, but shines pale and large,
And she harbors an acrid, cap-gun smell.
She see Earth as paradise, blue skied and argent −
Of droughts and famines, Moon cannot tell.
We are bound with our Shepherdess in an embrace.
She governs the cycles we cherish on Earth.
Many moons, she has led our errant race
Of flat-footed monkeys, tailless at birth.
She has tried to inspire us to wisdom and grace,
Foresight and reverence for all we're worth.
Our Shepherdess has a one-month blink.
So intense are her passions, so one-eyed her glance,
She relies on her cohort to ponder and think.
She beams on bare breasts and on new-fallen pants,
And seduces corallia to their mating dance,
Unaware down on Earth, we're her fer-de-lance.
-- Leslie G. Harper
August 27, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment