The Man on the Moon

Ground control to major Tom
Ground control to major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on *

We are not safe upon the surface

of the far side of the moon.

It is so unlike the near side,

which is as pockmarked and familiar

as an ancient family portrait.

Here, the ground will grant

no family secrets; it is but solely

sacred to the scarcest gems

we, the men on the moon, might mine.

Men? Here, we are more machines

than men— a perfection, to some certain

comprehension. Our contact, each

to each, occurs in hollow ghostly echoes,

or in lights that blink a ghastly pink

in odd, but too familiar sequence.

Here, the meteors rifle through

the faintest light, as if directed

by a Cognition, utterly incapable of care.

Not unoften, one of us is blindly struck

The moltened spacesuit yields

and the body unencased, erupts

into that dusty, distanced silence,

we might well call home

But, oh the stars.

They stretch from eye to eye,

more brightly than my mind can reason;

and, in constant expanse,

explode across the light years and forever.

Can you imagine their blood red heat?

With their light distilled to purest white,

can you imagine?—can you still imagine,

the warmth they give to our meaning?

Space Oddity: David Bowie