The Moon

The Moon had a millenniums-long crush on the Earth — but could do nothing about it. He tried to tug at her heart but instead pulled her tides. He glowed from the sun’s rays  to light her on dark nights but she hardly noticed. The Moon just quietly rotated around her, always keeping his face turned  toward her blue and green beauty. “It must be my face,” he sighed. Pocked with craters,  he was scarred with the abuse of time.  Once he had gotten his hopes up when she had sent some of her inhabitants to check him out. But she hadn’t done that in nearly 40 years.  Space was lonely. The Moon was lonelier.

Poets had written about him. Young lovers had fallen in love beneath his glow.  The Moon was a romantic. He just couldn’t get the Earth’s attention. Around and around and around he went, nearly always the same distance away.  He just quietly orbited her as they took yet another trip around the Sun.

The former astronaut, however, was not so romantic about the place he had once visited. He saw the Moon in scientific terms: Gravity. Space. Acceleration. Escape Velocity. One of the few men on Earth who had walked on its surface, he had a serious up on everyone he met. Like the comedian Brian Regan had once said, he could trump anyone by just saying, “Well, I walked on the Moon.”  He sat out in the backyard of his Houston home and looked at the sky.  “Someday we’ll get back to you, old friend,” he warmly growled. “Someday.”

The astronaut’s great-grandson walked out carrying a sippy-cup.  He stopped, dropped the cup onto the St. Augustine grass and pointed to the sky. “MOOON!” his little sing-song voice cried out.  The astronaut picked up the little boy and said, “Yes sir, we’ll be back someday.” He then laughed, “Maybe Newt Gingrich will build that Moon base after all.” The political joke was lost on the child but what the astronaut didn’t know was that indeed someday his great-grandson would go back. Because America’s courage to explore would be re-ignited. He’d take one small step for man just like his grand-grandfather had so many years ago.

“Never quit exploring little buddy,” the astronaut finished. “It’s the most romantic thing you can possibly do.”  With that, he put his great-grandson down. He then watched as space exploration’s future picked up his sippy-cup and stared at his future.

If the Moon could have smiled he would have.  Any attention from the Earth was good attention.  But in the meantime he patiently waited, spinning around and around the woman he loved until he was visited once again.