From Orpheus to Nuking the Moon
Janet Kuypers
edited 07/14/11
based on 2005 prose piece “the Moon & Astronomy”, written for her show “How Do I Get There”
scientists have have come up with theories
in guessing how this planet got a moon
that it may have formed off a collision
with a rogue planet they call Orpheus
and that when the moon first formed
it was much, much closer to Earth
than it is today
that it may have been only 14,000 miles away
and not at it’s current almost 240,000 mile distance
NASA’s Artist-in-Residence Laurie Anderson
learned from scientists at NASA
that during the cold war
they considered setting off nuclear bombs
on the dark side of the moon
because, you see,
no one sees that side of the moon
but astronomers now estimate
that because of gravity’s change
the moon
every year
is a mile and a half farther away from the earth
If you remember the moon
looking so big
when you looked at it in the night sky
when you were younger
well,
you may have been right
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