Welcome To The Moon by Bruce McRae

Welcome To The Moon

by Bruce McRae

Of course I have no idea
what it is I’m doing here,
a little house on Mare Librium,
the icy nights and lack of atmosphere,
a door that’s always ajar,
the light on the veranda
swarming with moon-moths and asteroids,
moondust getting into everything.

I’d rather be sailing,
though I’ve never been sailing before.
I hardly go anywhere
that I’m not invited.
For instance, the Vatican,
its secret library and underground passageways
that lead directly to a netherworld
they neither confirm nor deny,
the existence of heaven also in doubt,
in the same way some question
the moon landings or fairies in the garden.
I mean, who’d be an astronaut,
gravity’s dearth and glut a problem,
the cosmos just another god to be denied . . .

But I digress, a series of digressions,
footprints in ash leading us away from ourselves,
Luna City rising up from a crater’s bottom
and its suggestive connotations.
When what I’d wanted to say is
come one, come all, the moon awaits thee,
its enticing vistas and stoic panoramas,
though ‘stoic’ may not be the word I’m looking for,
perhaps ‘stoney’ or ‘stolid’ instead,
my point being we need the tourist dollars
if ever we hope to survive. And hope we must
if we are to flourish in the future.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. The winner of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems have been performed and broadcast globally.