Category: poetry

“We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.” – Bill Anders (Apollo 8, December 1968)

Apollo once rose to meet the Moon’s pale face,
and found the Earth instead, shining in its own surprise.
Now Artemis moves along that inherited path,
entering the silence where distance teaches us who we are.

And now four travellers drift along that ancient arc,
their heartbeats the only warmth in the Moon’s long shadow.
They carry our questions farther than any story has gone,
their windows holding the small, bright memory of home.

At the farthest point any human has ever stood,
their courage becomes its own kind of gravity.
In this quiet frontier where science reaches outward,
they prove how far the human spirit is willing to go.

In this moment, they inherit every vision that humanity cast into the stars,
from ancient myths to engines built on reason’s fire.
Here at the edge of all imagined futures, the human quest reveals itself:
not escape, but the courage to understand our place in the vastness.

In a world so often pulled down by fear, by greed, by the smallness we carry,
their courage rises as a reminder of what we’re still capable of achieving.
While some choose limits or conflict, these travellers choose the unknown,
showing that humanity’s finest moments come from reaching beyond ourselves.

And now they carry forward that first small step Apollo left in lunar dust,
turning a single footprint into the next stride of our shared history.
Here, humanity meets its own reflection in the dark beyond the Moon,
proving again that our greatest leaps begin with the courage to go farther.

And soon they will turn back toward the world that sent them,
carrying the quiet proof that distance can deepen our belonging.
Their journey will fold into the long memory of returning home,
reminding us that exploration is a way of learning to cherish what we are.

Whatever path awaits them after this long arc through shadow,
their footsteps will settle into the lineage of every human who dared.
This moment becomes a seed for futures we cannot yet imagine,
a reminder that legacy begins whenever someone chooses to go farther.

And when they turn for home, they’ll bring back more than distance…
a new chapter written beyond the reach of any footprint.
Their passage will settle into history, not in dust, but in what it inspires,
reminding us that every return becomes the beginning of the next great step.

From Artemis’ ancient storytellers to Verne, Wells, and Clarke’s bright futures,
from Apollo’s dust‑lit courage to the imagined Moon of Space:1999,
their journey gathers every dream ever cast toward the lunar light,
reminding us that each new step is born from centuries of human wonder.

This blog ©2026 Geoff Allshorn, with some editorial assistance from CoPilot AI. I show my respect for Elders past and present and acknowledge the Wurundjeri-Willam people, the Traditional Custodians of the Land on which this blog was prepared.

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first liquid-fueled rocket launch.

I walk the grey dust where their footprints remain,
Pressed into silence, preserved without rain.
The shadows lie long in this airless light,
Yet something familiar steadies me tonight.

Apollo came first with a single nation’s pride,
A Roman name carried on a Cold War tide.
Its courage was real, but its vision was small,
A triumph for some, not a future for all.

Artemis rises with a broader aim,
Not conquest, not rivalry, not glory or fame.
A mission shaped by many voices and views,
A future imagined by all we include.

And we follow the dreamers who gazed from below,
Who saw in that lantern a place we might go.
They pictured its valleys, imagined its plains,
Gave substance to longing that language constrains.

From poets who whispered of journeys untold,
To thinkers who mapped it in silver and gold,
To children who pointed and claimed it as ours,
Their visions still rise with the dust of these hours.

We walk in the footsteps of those who first dreamed flight,
From watchers of tides to keepers of ancient night.
From minds who traced how the planets would roam,
To builders of engines that carried us from home.

The ones who saw futures in fire and flight,
Their courage and craft shape our path through this light.
Their questions became the foundations we use,
A legacy guiding the journey we choose.

The Earth hangs distant, a fragile sphere,
A reminder of everything we hold dear.
Borders vanish when seen from this place,
Revealing one planet, one human race.

We walk by knowledge that time cannot sever,
By lessons learned from Apollo’s endeavour.
Their boldness lit the path we now choose,
A path where no one is asked to lose.

This dust recalls the stories we share,
From Africa’s first watchers of the night air,
Reading the heavens in patterns of fire and stone,
Long before empires claimed the sky as their own.

Here too, we adapt, we endure, we belong,
Sometimes in silence, sometimes in song.
A chorus of humans beneath a stark sun,
Continuing a journey the first steps begun.

Let shadows drift freely across the old regolith;
Earthlight will guide us far better than myth.
Its glow is a promise no darkness can shun:
That we shape our tomorrow by standing as one.

Author’s Note: this poem is companion to A Distant Sun.

This blog ©2026 Geoff Allshorn, with some editorial and artistic assistance from Deep AI and CoPilot AI. I show my respect for Elders past and present and acknowledge the Wurundjeri-Willam people, the Traditional Custodians of the Land on which this blog was prepared.