Lay for the Day 15th September

1968: The Soviet Union launches its spacecraft Zond 5, the first to go to the moon and return to the home planet. Nine months later, on 20th July 1969, Neil Armstrong would be the first human to set foot on an off-world.

from Stories from the Heart

The moon’s no companion
though I’ll smile to see her,
though I have looked in her face like a lover.

I have seen her exalted on a clear night
and a fragment,
the statue of a breast in daylight,
and footprints in the dust of her veil.

Heavenly mother of images and madnesses,
long dead,
the scarred face of a blank clock,
white beyond comparison,

to you, the form of all wasted messages,
I fall solemnly prey.

John Gibbens
from Makings ’77-’83

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