by R. Joseph Capet
Cernan's pick drove into the glassy silver like Trotsky's skull or winter ice, cut a Tahitian pearl of great price and splashed it down in the South Pacific. A curator cased it on the Potomac with a plaque to ask visitors to touch it gently.
Year by year, beneath empty skies, this glittering gem of an alien Vulcan was ground to sand by all mankind. Beneath groping, sticky fingers it became fine fairy dust to fire the dreams of little hands.
And in the darkness of the night, while visions of distant worlds danced in their heads, God came stealing down their chimneys and read their palms with burning tongues like a man sifting the shattered shards of a mirror searching for himself. |