Moon Dust
When you are sleeping, sleep.
Be where you are.
Out in space, there is a flag
and there is moon
dust that has been flattened
under a human foot.
OK. Leave it. Hey, Ulysses,
we gave you islands
and godlike women. Make
the most of your
circumstances. Stick around,
would you. Let
the sky go back to being weather,
let weather only
help you select food and clothes.
When you see two
traffic lights swaying from
their line, but just
one bright green light beaming
out at you, don’t
think that they are winking.
Don’t wonder when
the bulb died. Fix it. Or tell
someone else to.
Last night we were driving home from a friend's house after dark, and my son said from the backseat, "Mom, I can't see the flag. How do we know it's up there?"
ReplyDeleteHe was talking of course, about the flag on the moon. I told him you just have to trust that it's up there, that we have footage of the astronauts placing it there.
We don't know if it's still there or not, of course. Most likely the flag (or flags, from subsequent missions) sizzled in the ignition gasses. But he can find that out later, at seven, I still want him to have faith and hope in objects sometimes.
Thank you for this, Hannah!!
Especially thought-provoking, and very good!
ReplyDeleteyour tone gives me great pleasure, hey, ulysses))) and your urge at acceptance is fundamental, urgent, and yet the adventure of life remains central and necessary.
ReplyDeletei wonder what you look like inside your life, not physically per se, but how you walk, how you change those around you, what you do to the walls of your house.
xo
erin
Am I alone here, or is this desperately, poignantly ironic?
ReplyDeleteDon't dream in dreams, don't desire to go to the moon, don't be like Ulysses and try to go home again, don't see meaning in the weather or personalize those ridiculously human-looking traffic lights, don't notice life or death, just stay where things are fixable, within your [undefined] boundary. Then and only then you can order others around.
Love it. Just what I needed tonight. And now I am going out to look at the moon!
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's about being present and being grounded. Sometimes we get too caught up with what-ifs. We're curious beings. We find meaning where someone else finds another, or the absence of it (knock, knock, Albert Camus). And so, we can never be boring, methinks. :)
ReplyDelete