Circling Back

July 15 2019

If the goal of meditation is to still the mind

I would rather busy myself.

To let my mind wander

as it does when I walk,

the body like a metronome

as step follows step

and thoughts run free as jazz.

The stream of consciousness

that listens closely to itself.

That plays by ear,

intuitive, and improvised.

Is free to digress

but also formalized,

the structured score

the disciplined habit of thought.

The propulsive beat

and gut response,

scat, riff, bebop

cool, swinging, hot.

And that final held note,

as if lingering on air

when the music stops.

How many poems

have come to me

trudging through the woods,

reassured

that the parts I will forget

are not worth remembering?

We are built for it,

the walking animal

who has spread to the ends of the earth

and is no less restless now.

It has been 50 years

since the first man

left the gravity of earth

and saw the planet whole,

a blue and green sphere

in the blackness of space.

Since the first man

walked on the moon

and left his footprints there.

Still perfectly intact,

pressed

into fine-grained sand

in the starkly angled light.

While the bright stars and stripes,

has become tattered and dulled,

the merciless power

of unfiltered sun

on man-made material.

And the landing stage

like a squat metallic bug

propped on splayed spider-legs

remains where we abandoned it,

an alien thing

stranded for good.

The Sea of Tranquility,

so ironically named

in a century preoccupied

with genocide and war.

They went all the way to the moon

only to take a walk,

trampling, rambling, sauntering

looking up at earth.

I walk

under a full moon

on a clear summer night.

A man alone

instead of the legions it took

to conceive

construct

and launch,

then bring them home.

Safe, half a century on

in this soft silver light

from the deadly contingencies

and countless might-have-beens

that somehow all went right.

But still, the same as me

the first man walked

and circled back

and left his mark.

The same slow steady gait

that took us out of Africa

and then into space.

Did he, too, listen to the silent thoughts

that play like jazz,

bouncing about

like a giddy child

on that first moon walk?

When the 3 lbs

of gelatinous matter

in the skull's black box

are free to improvise,

expanding out

to fill the universe.

Or, with an ear cocked close

probe inward.

I forgot about the moon landing 50 years ago this month. But it's been all over TV, and I've been sitting rapt, watching the archival footage I never saw on the small black and white TV that was set up in the dining hall of the summer camp I attended, squinting over the heads of the tired but exuberant crowd, well past our regular bedtime. I was 14 in 1969.

I notice the anachronisms: almost all men, most young and white, in shirts and ties, many smoking cigarettes and pipes. But it feels contemporary, as well. Because to me, the cars seems so familiar I find myself forgetting how far in the past this was. And because people do not change, even if fashion does. And because the technology still looks impressive, the buildings modern, the quality of the film immaculate. Not just immaculate, but stunning in how comprehensive it is: how they documented every aspect of this great adventure, clearly so very conscious of their place in history. Which reminds me, as well, of the Cold War, the reason for the moon shot in the first place: how secretive the Communists were, afraid the world might see them fail; and how open and fearless the Americans were, sharing their triumph -- and potential failure -- with all mankind.

It was the same year as Woodstock, which has also been on TV. Watching part of that long documentary film, I am reminded not only of the great music, but of the anti-war protesters and assassinations and the 60s counter-culture that was so at odds with the Cape Canaveral of Apollo. Of the of the idealism and hedonism and changelessness of youth, and of the self-importance of “now”. Of all those beautiful young men and women, all lithe and tanned and hip, who must now be in their 70s.

I wanted to write a poem about Apollo 11, but then thought that the things I wanted to say lent themselves more to prose. At the same time, I've been encountering a lot of articles about walking: reflections on walking and the role it played for some of the great figures of literature; walking as a political act that stubbornly rebuts the modern exigencies of speed and convenience and productivity; the humility of being in nature, the need for unstructured thought, and walking as a form of meditation.

So I started to write, when halfway through I recalled the image of Neil Armstrong's boot-print on the moon. So much technology, collective effort, blood and treasure, and human ingenuity; and all of it for the sake of a man taking a walk on the moon. Which is really all that was done when he and Buzz Aldrin got there. Sure, there were some obligatory scientific experiments, left to run by themselves. There was the flag, a necessary gesture of nationalism to appease the politicians. There were the rocks they brought back, that told us whatever it is rocks have to say. But mostly, it was that exhilarating walk, as well as the tell-tale footprints that will remain on the moon's rugged surface, unchanged for millennia.