Contest Winners!
We have winners, for the Lunar Maria poem contest. Sharon Mock wins an SFPA membership donated by me; Adrienne J. Odasso wins a copy of the 2009 Rhysling Anthology donated by sam_henderson. I will contact both winners and Sam to arrange prize logistics.
First place:
Alexander von Humboldt Visits the Moon
by Sharon Mock
He comes to the New World
to make his name. Instead
his name makes him. He writes
and syllables scatter, lifted
like Platanus seeds by the wind.
His progeny take root
miles past where his feet step.
When he bathes in the ocean
long red schools upwell
to feed on stray letters
washed off in the tide.
One night, as he sleeps
in a tent by the river,
the Moon comes in the shape
of a woman, pale and austere.
She pulls him reluctant
over the treetops, through the ice
fiber of cloud, for a better view.
She is neither silver nor cheese
but basalt underfoot,
comfortable stone. His feet
leave no mark in the dust.
On the horizon, a lazurite bead
dangles blinding, bright,
beyond his reach. From here
every pattern shows distinct,
complexity condensed,
flattened to surface and line.
The Moon's light hand
holds a palmful of dust to his face.
In its eddies, lines of men
launch upward, driven by water
and engineering, driven by the will
of politics and exploration.
They leave footprints and flags
but their names drown
beneath the sea america, none of them
as potent as his own.
He awakens, cold and clean-footed,
as the moon sinks behind
the forest canopy. A diamond winks
from dark shadow and is gone.
He tells nobody what he has seen.
But the astronomers know.
Second Place:
Lunar Divination in Three Simple Steps
by Adrienne J. Odasso
1. Mare Spumans
Tonight, sorrow pools
in the pale curve of my palm
like sea-foam: cold, frail.
2. Mare Cognitum
There is what I know
and what the Moon sees. The tide
scorns me, then recedes.
3. Mare Marginis
Grass, a ley-line, shorn
by mute sand. At dawn, the light
will shy from my hand.
First place:
Alexander von Humboldt Visits the Moon
by Sharon Mock
He comes to the New World
to make his name. Instead
his name makes him. He writes
and syllables scatter, lifted
like Platanus seeds by the wind.
His progeny take root
miles past where his feet step.
When he bathes in the ocean
long red schools upwell
to feed on stray letters
washed off in the tide.
One night, as he sleeps
in a tent by the river,
the Moon comes in the shape
of a woman, pale and austere.
She pulls him reluctant
over the treetops, through the ice
fiber of cloud, for a better view.
She is neither silver nor cheese
but basalt underfoot,
comfortable stone. His feet
leave no mark in the dust.
On the horizon, a lazurite bead
dangles blinding, bright,
beyond his reach. From here
every pattern shows distinct,
complexity condensed,
flattened to surface and line.
The Moon's light hand
holds a palmful of dust to his face.
In its eddies, lines of men
launch upward, driven by water
and engineering, driven by the will
of politics and exploration.
They leave footprints and flags
but their names drown
beneath the sea america, none of them
as potent as his own.
He awakens, cold and clean-footed,
as the moon sinks behind
the forest canopy. A diamond winks
from dark shadow and is gone.
He tells nobody what he has seen.
But the astronomers know.
Second Place:
Lunar Divination in Three Simple Steps
by Adrienne J. Odasso
1. Mare Spumans
Tonight, sorrow pools
in the pale curve of my palm
like sea-foam: cold, frail.
2. Mare Cognitum
There is what I know
and what the Moon sees. The tide
scorns me, then recedes.
3. Mare Marginis
Grass, a ley-line, shorn
by mute sand. At dawn, the light
will shy from my hand.