Commanded by Alan Shepard, Apollo 14's lunar module Antares landed on the moon February 9, 1971. The following poem by Tom Disch appeared in Poetry magazine one year later, in the February 1972 issue:
Apollo 14
by Tom Disch
At this height there is neither winter
Nor any form of weather--an absence
In which the only turning
Is the turning of the eyes to view
Unvarying stars, the only bending is the heart's
Slow bendings on its soft stem;
The months become enormous--years,
Millennia--distended spheres that rise
Above the bordered oceans, the mere dapplings
Of day and night, until they reach
This fleshless moment here--
Every voice every gesture
Compressed into a single point of light.
Apollo 14
by Tom Disch
At this height there is neither winter
Nor any form of weather--an absence
In which the only turning
Is the turning of the eyes to view
Unvarying stars, the only bending is the heart's
Slow bendings on its soft stem;
The months become enormous--years,
Millennia--distended spheres that rise
Above the bordered oceans, the mere dapplings
Of day and night, until they reach
This fleshless moment here--
Every voice every gesture
Compressed into a single point of light.
RSS Feed