Category: Poetry

Neil Armstrong,  1930-2012

The Eagle landed and Apollo’s progeny
took one giant leap
with tubes and tanks and dreams
to plant Old Glory on her final beachhead.

He walked into the cold, silent vacuum
as glasses clinked in Houston.
His winged and echoing words
understated the immortality of the deed.

From behind mics and podiums
and museum glass he watched
his household name proliferate.

And on the night the inevitable darkness
swirled down over his eyes
the moon flew itself at half-mast.

The distance between mankind and immortality,
though leapt by few,
has never shrunk. Yet on certain nights
its massive amber draws our hearts
and flings them moonward
like an arrow from Apollo’s bow.

2012

See the city
drive around
the encircling highway
and streets named for dead horses

admire the trees
absorb the yellow shock
of gingko and the perfect
tulip poplar posture

locate the cemetery
gaze upon the eternal
ossified contrails
of rocketed statesmen

2017

Not, as some have simplified the word,
two fellows in one ship, as if the two
at wind’s whim blithely cast off shore.
Steer starboard in your ark, send birds
to scan the climate, span the swelling blue
and light upon a different metaphor.
Imagine life’s a canvas (art indeed);
adjacent primary colors, me and you,
at calculated master strokes explore
new shades. Imagine all that we two bleed
toward.

2008