Not Worth the Trip = April 9 2026

 

Not Worth the Trip

April 9 2026

The far side of the moon isn’t dark,

there is no “dark side”.

Is this a misunderstanding

or could it be metaphor?

After all, might as well be dark

since it’s kept from our eyes.

But knowing my fellow man

I suspect hubris;

that the universe

is how it seems to us,

that if we can’t see it

no one can.

And perhaps, without first hand evidence

doesn’t even exist;

as if we were toddlers

who have yet to learn

object permanence. 

But now, we have photographic evidence

and it’s what you’d expect,

a bleak lunar landscape

that looks like pumice stone;

fine regolith

bombarded by meteors,

and a horizon line

that sharply divides light from dark.

Where a simple step across

would take your blood

from boiling hot to frozen solid.

Not worth the trip, I’d say.

But then, your eyes fix

on the crescent of earth peeking over its edge,

suspended

in the vacuum of space

like a blue and green jewel

on a black velvet bed.

How we never see ourselves, but should;

a living planet

smaller and more fragile

than we ever imagined from here,

a shared space 

where we breath the same air

and depend on its life support.

Where we are all astronauts 

on spaceship earth,

taking for granted

our only home.

This photo was taken from Artemis II as it looped around the far side of the moon; our first return to deep space in half a century (excluding unmanned probes), and far enough away to see the entire earth as a sphere.

Scientists always knew the far side wasn’t dark, but the misnomer persists. Inaccurate, but a decent metaphor for something we can’t see anyway. Or hubris:  if it’s dark to us, then it must be objectively dark, dark to anyone anywhere. 

In finally opening our eyes to the far side, we ended up opening our eyes to ourselves.