Footstep

Footstep Across the gray and stillborn face Earthlight beams in shafts of blue To follow sunlight into plains And ancient valleys in hide and see Played upon this place, A million years or more, Then bends around horizon’s sloping line To reach into the golden dawn It ever seeks just beyond The plane where light and dark Never meet. The hills and glens lie mute, still As on the day they came to be, Watching the ever shifting Earthrise set against of sky of ebony While not one particle Moves from the place of its birth In harmony with particles identical In nature and in face and they, Inertia’s handiwork, rest beneath the hands Of light that run across this silent solitude Without the help of winds That gird their neighbor’s waist. The eons look like eternity - nothing changes In the rhythm of inertia’s Ever watchful eye – no life force rising, Stretching, reaching – the sea tranquility Does not thunder with perpetuation's swell And yet, it bears the eagle’s mark – The first, now everlasting, footstep in a race So quickly come then gone And mirrors to empty space the challenge That gave them flaming wings carrying them Far beyond their fruitful home to leave a plaque In the empty dust of eon’s signature. Dedicate to Apollo 11 7-21-89