Moon Ascent

@alons, ce sera pour la derniere fois@ Sophie Blanchard 1819 a metaphor of the sea sings no music, no swell here, to swing the stern; nor any pressure to float a kite: there is no 'flight' to the moon, no wing can carry me. At the birth of Napoleon's son I lifted from the Champ de Mars, and from the basket scattered a shower of papers to proclaim the birth. clearing steeple and tree top, opening a passage into airless geometry where faith is translated to trajectory, buoyancy, computation; weight against lift; gravity versus the pull of elsewhere. tilt of a wickerwork floor, creak of a cable; the flake of my dry lips at travel's very limit: so vast the distance that if I raised a finger behind it would vanish the whole blue jewel of the Earth: fireflies on an evening porch; a curtain sailing at a summer window; my mother bending to her linens, the remembrance of a smile creased in her skin. I am on the edge of the sky; I feel excellent, my eyes filed with moonclouds, and the dark seas. I am beginning to move away. Sophie Blanchard, Aeronaut (1778 - 1819)