Voyagers

 

It was not so much the moon

(its aura the colours of oil spilled on tarmac)

that stayed with them

in those strange empty days

afterwards

when they belonged

neither here nor there

 

but the earth, fragile

Eden

seen from the capsule window

and how at that moment

one of them had remembered

Apollo, guardian of the herds and crops

god of light, god of knowledge

 

 

 

 

Published in Areté, 2018