Call sign – “Artemis II”

Their eyes the night before on the pale tracery of the Moon,

rotund in a penumbral sky, as finely wrought as da Vinci sketch,

the waiting rocket pointing the way like a Norman tower,

its ancient roots long-sunk in the tidal wash of a water meadow,

trailing pale vapours as from the armoured carapace of a slumbering Quetzalcoatl,

the same breath that would soon become an incandescent roar,

countdown done, engines on, prayers said,

a vibration in the very marrow of their bones,

shaking the words loose as they tumble into a web of radio waves;

clearing the tower, a Promethean arrow hurled at the summit of the sky,

wresting its way free of the gravity well,

“Hauling the mail” all the way to those dusty mares

wherein reside the footprints of the first of the few,

carrying a single message from all the peoples of the Earth

to those that may one day live on the Moon,

on that stepping-stone world:

On, and on and on again – to Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune

and thence to the stars themselves,

“Never look back, never look down,”

only on and on to the next glimmering horizon

and the one after that…

With thanks to Jade Boudreaux for her artwork depicting the Artemis II Iaunch and to David A. Hardy for his painting “A Fall of Moondust.”

For more on David A. Hardy visit the BIS website here: https://www.bis-space.com/space-artist-at-90/

Recent Posts