August 26, 2012

A bright very still morning.  The air is so clear it's like a magnifying glass over the whole yard, each leaf seems to stand out and the jumble of cane seem to separate into all the long drooping leaves edged in light.  All along the bare ground, there are white cane sprouts from all the rain, proof that hope does spring eternal.

Yesterday Neil Armstrong died.  He was 82 and had a life that can be envied by so many people.  He was a quiet man, not much one for making a lot of appearances and hoopla about his accomplishments.  I have never heard anyone say a single negative word about him, not one.  For that alone he could be remembered.  As the first human to step foot on another world, he was the perfect person to have done that, smart, dignified, willing to share but not exploit his feat.  I always admired him and considered him a hero we could all be proud of.  I know there were plenty of people behind that first step, but someone had to take it and I am it was him.  He was a staunch advocate of manned exploration, one of the few things he would speak out in favor of if asked.  Now we have Curiosity on Mars, perhaps someday we will have another hero, maybe someone not ever born yet who will step foot on that red planet and make their own mark, leave their own footprint on the heart of humanity.

It's the day of the blessing, and we were blessed to have such people exploring the universe and bring us back knowledge, creating inventions to make our lives easier, giving us hope and a goal to strive toward.  May we be blessed by that attitude of seeking out frontiers and pushing at boundaries for all our future.

I liked this poem when I found it, and wondered, as the poet must have, what Neil Armstrong thought about the moon after he had been there, not his public proclamations, but in the quiet of seeing it at night from his back yard or driving down the highway and seeing it rise large and luminous over the road.

Neil Armstrong Shoots the Moon

Neil Armstrong on his back deck
gazes up at the blatant moon
the way you might peer at a vacation photo
of Seattle propped on a cluttered
bookcase. Says, “I’ve been there.”  Or

Neil Armstrong shakes his bristled head,
“I’ve been THERE?”  Same
as you, tossed in time, squint at all those
glossed Seattles floating
deep in inner space, far from your daily orbit.

Or even, like Neil, bathed in moondust,
feel the prick of small
skulking knowledge you’ve been there
but don’t know the place
at all beyond a booted step on a crusty shell.

Or Neil says, “You know, I was only first
because I was sitting near
the door,” and you recall a burbling phone
one tea-cozy morn,
all lunatic thereafter, a kettle whistling mad.

Or, if with a little launch of ego Neil says,
“I’VE been there,” you wonder
what kind of “I” it was saw Seattle, and if
you still know that person
you know you badly need to know.

Or, less likely but to be hoped, Neil swivels
a craggy pate
up to the orange-yellow Buddha, feels
implausible rain or tears,
no telling which, kiss his runneled cheek.

Just as you, one ragged half-corked evening,
home in on the moonface
backlit in the bathroom mirror – so like
your father’s, so much
stranger – gravely seeming to say,

“I’ve been watching
you for years. Time you noticed. Who
are you, really, what
is your intention, where have you been
to give off such a light?”

David Cavanagh

This made such a personal connection to me as I used to favor my mother's side of the family but as I age more and more I look like my father.  I wonder if he would ever have asked me who I was really, and if he would have liked the answer, if I could even give him one.  Sometimes I feel like no one knows where they have been to give off such light as their life will give, or where that light will reach, or what will be illuminated by it.  I just know that each morning I am glad to have whatever light is out there, and whatever grace will enter and take up space in my own heart.  Every day a blessing . . .