Janet Kuypers
4/30/24
Ripples from the tides lap along the shore as our eyes gaze up
to the Man on the Moon, this mysterious being born from us,
as we feel led in our interlocked dance.
We croon and wax poetic about this seemingly mythical enigma,
but scientists add more satellites to orbit the Moon for research.
Now, since Moon clocks are faster than Earth clocks, the U.S.
government wants NASA to establish a Moon time zone.
Really.
That — and NASA sent me an email recently about sending them
a job application — to become an astronaut. Now, I know
I don’t have the technical background to fly in outer space—
besides, I’d rather be their 2nd artist in residence instead.
But NASA hasn’t sent me any emails to apply for that job.
The thing is, it wasn’t from astronauts, or NASA, or the news
that I learned our seemingly never-ending dance with the Moon
will end: those tides we keep attributing to the Moon... well,
Earth’s rotation pushes the tidal bulge slightly ahead of the Moon,
feeding bits of energy into the Moon, pushing out the Moon’s orbit,
spinning away from the Earth close to an inch and a half every year —
and I first learned this from NASA’s artist-in-residence.
Because the artists are the ones who tell you the good stuff...
like, during the Cold War, before they put a man on the Moon
the Air Force thought to set off a nuclear bomb on the Moon —
something visible to the naked eye on Earth — because that,
they thought, “would boost the morale of the American people.”
Really.
Then again, after a year of Laurie Anderson’s artist-in-residence,
NASA asked about her “progress” — and she told them she was
writing one long poem.*
That may be when NASA halted its artist-in-residence program.
So, when all these science types are taking over the Moon,
where does that leave room for us poets, artists, dreamers.
* “The End of the Moon.”
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