Winter Moon

I am the Mogul's son,
priveleged to dwell atop
a world entombed
in megalithic towers,
so huge and tightly packed
that "Sun" and "Sky" 
are legends to the masses.

From this stratospheric spire
of chrome, steel, glass,
I see a thousand stars,
the full Moon overhead.

My father is a Selenite,
Lord of a lunar empire
stretching pole to pole
across the airless Moon.
I see him once each year,
on his world, not mine,
for Earth's gravity
is too brutal for his heart.

Just today I learned
of his imminent demise,
when he apologized
for missing a ceremony
in my academic honor.
Mother called later
to explain his absence.

He is beyond this Earth,
this world devoid
of ore and rock
from which to build
the buildings higher.
The Moon is Man's new quarry,
mined, stripped, furrowed,
plowed smooth of hills.

A painting, rendered
long before my birth,
hangs huge against the wall.
Mare Tranquillitatis,
Tycho Crater, Apennine Mountains
adorn the lunar face.
Unlike now -- this worn winter Moon,
bare as glass.

Scott Speck
10/25/99