Poem For A Friend Who Has Walked On The Moon

“The Far Side”
Original art by Audrey Schwartz. Rivers
©2012 All Rights Reserved

Fifty miles outside Yuma

the car suffocates.

Arizona highway coils

yellow and rough as

iguana’s tongue.

Calloused saguaros

sag with monotony.

A mirage of liquid coins

shimmers on the road

then dissolves

in 120-degree shade.

I speed up.

On dust, a semi and I

pass from opposite directions.

I drive on to the ocean.

ii.

The sun deceives

in the highlands of Mare Mirari.

We are only 6 meters from Pegasus Crater,

but its massive rim and boulders

cast umbra football fields long.

We run behind.

We must heed the voices.

We have only eight hours to breath.

I chip away at gray particles of memory

while Joe gathers wind from stars.

iii

Soon heaviness disappears.

We become lighter than helium.

I toss a stone into darkness.

It sails for miles.

Miles.

Tonight the moon will be plump

Cheshire Cat bringing rain to the North.

Here gasless sky

leaks its black oil spill.

The blue Earth crescent

winks an Oriental eye.

I can blot out the glow

with my silicon-stained thumb.

It is that easy.

Phoenix, Arizona

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