Moonshot

Tue, 02/23/2021 - 19:22 -- woila

A previously untitled poem from a junior-year

DP Language project on Langston Hughes. Loosely inspired by "I, Too, Sing America".

dated 03/25/2019

 

 

There's a great round moon shining down onto the pavement

and a little boy-child looking up into the wondrous navy blanket

and the dusty white yolk is peering through

where the quilting hasn’t been patched. 

The saucers in his eyes glimmer like the ones the dishwasher in the restaurant miles away just shined up for the night, 

and like the ones transmitting waves on waves of

“MAN TAKES FLIGHT”.

The green around them spills and stains a ring into the gossamer lights -

 

Terra to Apollo: I’m reading you, and I sure wish I could be with you.

 

There's little green men up there, too, and a flag bleached peace-white;

Man’s craters fall not from war, 

but grace,

 and those, too, thankfully, will wash away someday, 

in space.

 

Nobody fights up there,

and most importantly:

 

 

it's completely silent.

 

Mother soundlessly spots him gleaming and feels herself darken with pity -

for she knows that, above all things,

Utopia does not exist.

 

He ought to know that people make conflicts where-ever they go,

Though after some time they’ll change, if they wait -

They may wisely cast aside their burning hatred -

Some time they will calmly look towards each-other

and realize that two men in the same space do not have to bring about destruction,

(Or, if not, know that one's too stubborn to surrender,)

 

while the vast star-plane will broil beings like napalm if they do not wear their suits.

 

That will not change until there is nothing left.

 

 

 

Forgive her for quelling it so soon.

Her boy is not content here,

her boy is growing too comfortable with his dreams.

God knows she can read her only child.

 

Under the harsh white glare

Her Mother’s calloused hand, her hand, 

 

Eartha’s hand catches onto his arm.

 

Only disdain stains her eyes, 

the blunt grip of her arm sends him spinning away from that sky,

she says:

"If you keep looking up there, you'll turn into a lunatic."

 

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