MOONRISE

“Dear God!
keep my grandchildren and children safe,”
prayed the grandmother to the moon, rising in the sky.
 
No one had told her it was England, 1969,
nor did she know it was July the 20^th.
 
Unknown to the grandmother
did the weekend paper carry
an Armstrong strong-arming her Moon God,
a naive Vamana
foot
raised
and all . . .
 
and hence,
stunned was she,
when her granddaughter,
held out for her to see,
two large figures,
shining in the moonlight,
like the Asuras fighting the Devas.
 
To this,
her eyes shimmered open,
vexed and anxious.
 
Eyes closed,
water in her cupped hands, a prayer in her mouth . . .
she threw the water up to the night sky,
thrice.
 
As she looked on,
the blemishes on the moon ran away as rainclouds,
and was one with the night sky.
And then?
It looked at the grandmother and her grandchild,
and smiled . . .
 
The grandmother,
with a glad face and smile,
turned to her little grandchild with another story of the moon,
with a prince and princess,
across rivers and the forests,
they went,
through the shadows of a moonbeam,
they flew
to the moon.
In the end,
her eyes opened,
and lost were Armstrong and Aldrin.
 
Through the clear rain-swept sky,
the same moon glowed.
The same moon?

MOONRISE