Moon, I know
you’re rather fickle –
not long ago
you were thin as a sickle
but look at you now –
It’s night’s high noon
and you’re fat and full
as a blown balloon.
Moon, your face
is made of light
and you hang like hope
against the night,
waxing, waning,
sometimes gone,
always changing,
moving on.
We’re studying the moon –
drawing it, remembering all the moons
we’ve ever seen.
Just now, through the window,
there’s a daylight-moon looking fragile,
egg-shell soft, pale white.
I’ve no plans to go up there
whizzing through the blue,
landing on the pearly moon.
But I can’t stop thinking
about a blood-orange full moon
I saw inching up
into the summery sky.
It moved so slowly,
became a golden balloon
that never hurried.
I wanted to follow it,
catch it. But I never did.
(Published in Read Me, (Macmillan, 2009, ed. Gaby Morgan)
Perfectly round
the moon comes into focus,
luminous, haloed,
almost close enough to touch.
In this lunar landscape
there are mountains, craters
highlands and valleys,
the Sea of Tranquility,
the Ocean of Storms.
Three days’ journey
catapulted through
the blackness of space
past comets, stars
and satellites to reach
my destination.
I’d land on the bright side
of the moon,
my boots sinking into
silvery dust, soft like snow,
I’d jump over moon rocks,
check for signs of life,
then I’d turn to face the earth,
blue and green and beautiful
and I would wave.
