No mournful blare of trumpets but a forlorn Tweet announced
Another one had gone;
Another of the tallest redwoods in the forest of history
Had fallen, leaving a poorer world behind.
One by one they pass – the giants who dared to step
Off Terra, fly through a quarter million miles of deadly night
And stride across the Moon. On huge TVs in living rooms and schools
We watched them bounce across its ancient plains,
Snowmen stained by dust as cold and grey
As crematorium ash, mischievous boys with smiles flashing
Behind visors of burnished gold as they lolloped along,
Hopping like drunk kangaroos between boulders
Big as cars, so, so far away from Earth that their words
Came from the past –
And another one has gone.
To the children of today – their pale faces bathed not in sunshine
But in the cold turquoise light of tablets and phones – those Apollo
Adventures are like Greek myths, ancient history,
As far down the raging river of Time as Viking raids, Cleopatra’s
Braids or Magellan’s voyage across the sea; something seen
On documentaries sandwiched between “Ancient Aliens”
And X Files repeats. Their heroes and heroines, to our shame,
Are clueless Kardashian Barbies, rappers who believe the Earth is flat, or worse.
Some, their young brains washed in the filthy waters of YouTube,
Addled by the FULL CAPS blogs of idiots, liars and fools
Believe we never even went to the Moon.
“It was faked!” they whine, staring up at a Chemtrail criss-crossed sky,
Sneering at the crazy idea that there was a time, years before they were born,
When humans were smart and brave enough to walk
Across Luna’s frozen lava lakes, to take One Giant Leap
And see Earth shining glorious blue and white in an ebony sky…
© Stuart Atkinson 2016
Astropoetry 