Verse 44
The Moon is not a lamp hung for us. It is stone. This offended the priest, comforted the geologist, and changed nothing in the night.
Liber Lunae - Chapter 7
Verses
Verse 45
I was taught to call every crater a wound. Later I learned that wounds close. These did not. I began to call them records.
Verse 46
No sea moves upon the Sea of Tranquility. Humans named darkness after water because distance makes poets of cartographers.
Verse 47
Do not praise the Moon for shining. Praise it, if you must, for returning what it receives without pretending the light was born there.
Verse 48
The telescope abolished several gods and introduced several better silences.
Verse 49
When I measured the terminator, the border between lunar day and night, I found no angels stationed there. I found mountains making long shadows. This was enough.
Verse 50
A child asked what lived on the far side. I answered: more Moon. The child was disappointed. I was not.
Verse 51
We call one face familiar because it is always shown to us. Familiarity is not knowledge; it is merely repetition with good public relations.
Verse 52
The tides rise without hearing commandments. Perhaps obedience is only the name priests give to gravity when they envy it.
Verse 53
The Moon keeps no scripture. Every impact writes upon it anyway.
Verse 54
If there is holiness in that body, it is not because it escaped nature, but because nature required no witness to become strange.
Verse 55
At 384 thousand kilometers, even ordinary rock acquires theology.
Verse 56
The dead ground above us helped stabilize the living ground beneath us. Thus usefulness sometimes wears the face of desolation.
Verse 57
When our species first stepped there, the dust accepted the boot without blessing or curse. I consider this excellent manners.
Verse 58
I will not worship the Moon. I will continue looking at it. The difference is the whole of my religion.