I ran outside that night,
so full of life and excitement.
Imagined your surprise and thought I would see
a grimace,
a crease,
a worried frown.

Someone finally broke through.
Landed. Slammed into you
and stepped into your heart.
Your cold, aloof self,
finally
breached.

And yet I saw nothing new.
Your face unchanged,
seeing me only
as one of many who adore you,
who live and stare each night
beneath your remote reserve.

Thirty-plus years have passed.
I arise more slowly to morning sun,
less sure of my footing,
skin aged and sallow.
I still await the end of day
to feel your face upon my soul.

I peer through clouds within my eyes
and those that skirt your skies.
For I have loved you all these years
even as you appear
and disappear
and appear again.

You my love, care not.
You seem to ignore what I crave.
All I seek these many nights
is some recognition,
some sign,
that we have been with you.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse where Grace asks us to write about the moon as if the moon is a person – flesh, sweat and blood. “Describe him or her, and tell us about your moon.”
On July 20, 1969, I was 22, a graduate student at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. I’d heard about “the man in the moon” since I was a young child. You can “see” his face in the full moon, made by shadows and craters visible to the naked eye. On that July night at 9:56 PM, I watched my tiny portable television screen as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon. I remember staring in awe and then immediately running outside, standing on the sidewalk and looking up at the moon, as if I could see some sign up there! And I remember thinking: tonight there really is a “man in the moon.”   Dverse opens at 3PM EST.  Come join us!