{"id":4307,"date":"2015-07-20T16:12:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T20:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e357.net\/beingernest\/?p=4307"},"modified":"2020-07-20T19:58:18","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T23:58:18","slug":"moonfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/moonfall\/","title":{"rendered":"Moonfall"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

A slight jar and we’re free,
\nFloating in the dark.
\nA hand touches the stick
\nAnd a shudder passes
\nThrough the craft.<\/p>\n

Stars wheel crazily
\nUntil the gray white globe
\nSlides into view
\nNine miles high
\nFace down, like a runner
\nReady for the gun.<\/p>\n

And flight says “go”
\nAnd the mains roar
\nTheir silent outrage
\nAnd the ship shakes
\nAnd weight returns,
\nAnd the world flips about<\/p>\n

The face of the moon is a vast cliff
\nAnd we’re sliding down its glowing face
\nAnd to our impatient eyes
\nNothing has changed.
\nBut we know that we are
\nFalling
\nFalling
\nFalling<\/p>\n

In a long arc
\nThat will bring us down
\nTo gently kiss the face of the moon.
\nSweet four billion and never been kissed.
\nUntil now.
\nAnd the mains roar on
\nThirsty to drink their fill<\/p>\n

We started late
\nJust seconds
\nBut looking out the window
\nNeil can tell
\nAs the moon slips by
\nToo fast
\nAnd the mains roar on<\/p>\n

At three thousand feet
\nAlarms and confusion
\nCalled out in calm tones
\nYou’d never know that
\nWe almost turned back.
\nWe could have, you know.<\/p>\n

And now it’s close,
\nAlmost close enough to touch.
\nFlight calls out the burn time left
\n“Sixty seconds”
\nNeil hunts for a clear space
\nOn a field of boulders
\n“Thirty seconds”<\/p>\n

“We go to the moon,
\nnot because it is easy,
\nBut because it is hard.
\nAnd the other thing.”<\/p>\n

Lots of other things
\nTo taunt the bear
\nTo seed the south
\nTo remember a fallen leader
\nAnd because our own dreams
\nWon’t quite die.<\/p>\n

We have arrived
\nWithin the decade
\nAnd now the moon
\nHangs below us
\nJust out of reach<\/p>\n

Kicking up some dust
\nFaint shadow
\nDrifting to the right
\nContact light
\nEngine stop<\/p>\n

Tranquility<\/p>\n

\"Apollo<\/a>

I wrote this a while back for TechRevu, and did a reading of it at Readercon that year, whichever year it was. You might wonder: f we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we put a man on the moon? Well as Yogi says, it’s too crowded. Nobody goes there anymore.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A slight jar and we’re free, Floating in the dark. A hand touches the stick And a shudder passes Through the craft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4307"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6141,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4307\/revisions\/6141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}