Neil Armstrong presents a Google moon video together with original footage taken from the Eagle module during his landing 20 July 1969.
U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin salutes the American flag on the surface of the Moon after he and fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first men to land on the Moon during the Apollo 11 space mission on July 20, 1969. -- - PhotoBlog
MOONRISE
The moon marked out the edge of heaven.
On this, our scriptures all agreed.
The moon was fixed, it could not fall.
The moon would fill our final needs.
The songs we'd learned were of the moon,
A fitting subject, known to all,
But the songs we sang were of the Earth,
And those that lived before the Fall.
These songs of forests flowing round
The Earth's four corners warmed the frost
That killed our gardens, coming early,
To remind us all of what we'd lost.
"Why wander yearning for the moon?"
We'd ask of stones and ancient trees.
Their silence sang back in the night,
Of lands where all free choices freeze.
"Tranquillity", they promised us,
"Is the highest peak you will attain.
Tranquillity, where your bones will rest
Forever in the airless rains."
Our numbers grew, as did our tongues,
Beside brown rivers, on ancient plains.
We made more gods, we built up walls,
We fashioned towers of dirt and rain.
Within those walls we planted fruit
And flowers bordering roofless rooms,
Wherein we sang the centuries down,
Observing all the phases of the moon.
In time our towers turned to steel,
And their foundations into fire.
The rooms we made were sealed as stone,
And in those rooms we rose much higher.
The moon grew monstrous as we ascended;
In our window it grew larger than the world.
We lowered our ladder gingerly,
Stepped down, a bit of cloth unfurled.
We named the place Tranquillity.
A fitting gesture, all agreed.
We photographed ourselves on site,
Tossed away some junk we did not need,
And left, returning to that place
Where we'd begun beside the plains,
Boasting our footprints would endure
Forever in the airless rains.
Sometimes at night, we still look up
And see the moonrise scrape the sky.
It is the same, yet not the same,
And we know why, yes, we know why.
Apollo 17 Lifted off the moon and left it behind on December 14, 1972
Can't wait for Bill Jones to tell us the moon landing didn't happen because the Bildiburg Jewish Lizards didn't have the technology to go to the moon but only to fake it.
Posted by: Todd at July 20, 2013 9:43 AMFantastic poem.
Posted by: monkeyfan at July 20, 2013 9:59 AMThanks, monkeyfan.
Posted by: vanderleun at July 20, 2013 10:48 AMWhy should it make me wistful and sad at once?
It is lovely, Gerard.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh at July 20, 2013 11:06 AMYou've become one of my favorite poets, Gerard. And you're not even dead! (no, mostly dead doesn't count)
Posted by: SteveS at July 20, 2013 7:00 PMAnd we threw it all away.
Our descendants, if any, will scratch their heads in bafflement and wonder why.
Posted by: B Lewis at July 20, 2013 8:08 PMBart Sibrel will pick his nose with more understanding, knowing that Buzz Aldrin really did land a punch on his nose.
Posted by: Jewel at July 20, 2013 9:40 PMI'm sorry to be so harsh, but: shut up, grow a spine, survive the next couple of years, and then go back in force. Bill Whittle has a pretty good blueprint for this. It may not work, but not a whole lot else will.
Then you'll be able to say that you survived Communism AND went back to the moon.
A great collage of epic illustration and seminal poetry. Uplifting ... thank you Mr. Van der Leun.
My uncle's name was Louie Lozko. We called him "Letsgo" Lozko.
He raised bantam chickens. They were always restless under the full moon.
How sad... What has happened to this country?
Posted by: Captain Dave at July 20, 2014 3:33 PMI remember the night man first walked upon the moon. Although blurred, and no doubt enhanced by years of tales-oft-told and YouTube footage, the night itself is one of my first clear memories. We all gathered at my aunt and uncle's house (they had color TV).
I was four years old.
The landing took place in the early afternoon, Dallas time. We ate dinner together as we watched Robert Heinlein walk through CBS News' life-size moon landing diorama, explaining the whys and wherefores. I did not know who he was at the time. At about four, the landing itself began. We sat down in front of the TV as Walter Cronkite talked us through the final few minutes of the descent. CBS had a cornball animated sequence to show Jed and Granny Clampett what was going on up there, but we kids knew it wasn't the real thing. For one thing, the words CBS ANIMATION were supered across the screen when it was on.
After a good bit of this, and a lot of banter between the guys up there and Mission Control, the lander moved into position over the Sea of Tranquility. We could see what the astronauts were seeing through the triangular window of the Lunar Module as it was eased over, guided by Armstrong around a crater full of rocks, then directed across the surface to a smooth patch.
Then came the touchdown. "Man on the Moon!" exclaimed a gleeful Cronkite. We kids were thrilled. There was a spaceship on the moon!
After that came supper, and a lot of outdoor playing. It was hot in Dallas that night, and though I don't remember it directly I am sure the most night air was filled with the sounds of cicadas playing the reel and the sweet honeysuckle scent that East Dallas used to have, Before. There were fireflies to chase back then, too. I'm sure we must have chased them.
And then, around nine o'clock, came man's first steps on the moon. We kids joined the adults around the TV as Neil Armstrong backed out of the hatch, his identity unrecognizable in that ghostly white suit. He hopped backwards down the ladder of the LM, then stood on the landing pad. CBS supered a title over him in white letters reading "LIVE FROM THE SURFACE OF THE MOON". He chatted with Mission Control a bit, discussing the texture of the lunar surface, then paused. "I'm going to step off the LM now," he said.
And he did.
"That's one small step for a man... one... giant leap for mankind."
My aunts and uncles were all from Mississippi. They were the sons and daughters of my grandfather, a sharecropper, and my grandmother, a sharecropper's wife. They had lived in a clapboard shack in the middle of a Mississippi cotton patch until Emperor Hirohito's own Dream Act had lifted them out of poverty. One of my uncles went on to invent an important (and lucrative) automobile component for General Motors. Another was a computer programmer and business partner to a famous man who started one of the world's largest data-processing companies. Another eventually became a spy. My mother, the youngest, was a housewife. And all of those sharecropper's children were there that night, along with their mother, the sharecropper's wife, standing in their sister's living room in Pleasant Grove, Dallas, watching a man walk on the moon.
The men shook hands, grinned, and slapped each other on the back. The ladies, my aunts, cried a little. We kids jumped up and down and squealed with glee. The space race was over, and we had won! Right now, right this very minute, there was a man, an American man, walking around on the moon!
Of course, we all tore out into the back yard to look at the moon. "I think I see something!" one of us said, and of course the older kids laughed. I remember staring up at that moon, peering through my little slitted eyes for some spark or reflection of what was going on up there.
Later, we got bored and went inside. As Armstrong was joined by Aldrin on the moon, the ladies got busy with kitchen chores. The men watched on, their conversation turning to the upcoming Dallas Cowboys season. We children played with Legos or with games or something, as kids used to do before computers. After some time the little kids (not me) started falling asleep, and everybody went home.
Through it all, the sharecropper's wife, my grandma, then 68 years old, sat staring at the astronauts on the screen. "It's all fake," she concluded. She didn't believe God would allow men to walk on the moon. She never did believe the moon landing was real.
But I believed it, and I still believe.
"There are wonders beyond belief on the moon for those who can remove truth’s protective layers."
-- Neil A. Armstrong, 20 July 1994
Posted by: B Lewis at July 20, 2014 6:00 PMThe head of the CPA (Chartered Practicing Accounts) Australia also interviewed Neil Armstrong - the most extensive and interesting interview of Neil Armstrong I have been able to find:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t57KgcnQQaQ
Posted by: Brett_McS at July 21, 2014 6:38 AMAsk a current 20 something who landed on the moon.
"Oh, yea. Wasn't that Lance Armstrong and Buzz Lightyear?"
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