Satellite

A fascination there is, from far back in time,
an enchantment of the strongest kind.
Cast by that nightly passer-by,
that glowing shape up in the sky.
Behold this line - "The maiden swoons
into his arms 'neath the crescent moon"
Or this - "Like the full moon in the sky,
thy beauty bewitching to the eye."
And hoarse whispers - "Horrors cold and stark
thus plague this land in the moonless dark!"
So, what gives this all-encompassing might
to a mere rock with borrowed light
that, to those who it's praises sing,
even it's absence is a remarkable thing?
Yet it stands in place of prime
in poetry, science and all, through time!
Ardent swains trill more than enough
of what the moonlight means to Love.
Men of science go to great lengths
to link it to our existence.
The moon even gets a kindly face
and in fairy stories makes it's place.
Witches, goblins and wolfish things
too fly in on these moonbeam wings.
Yet, the same moon in the day
is just a satellite on it's way,
unnoticed by the earthly swarm
robbed of all it's night-time charm!

Images

Behold the snowy manes
of a hundred galloping equines
flourishing in the advance
and BOOM!
break against the cliffs
and retreat fluttering
like a thousand butterfly wings.

Cast an eye on the glittering hordes
That many-hued swarm
dancing, whirling with joy,
the passivity of surrender....
A swooping descent! and
a crackling impatience to be borne
upon the fickle, chancy wind, again.

Look deep at that fiery glow
surmounted by towering pillars
of changeful mists and vapours...
Now drifting...now still..
Wave upon wave of majestic plumes
shot through with light piercing,
a glow all-consuming, as of an
inferno at World's end, far away.

Never was the World stilled,
nor indeed the Universe
unchanging....eternal...
'Tis but a flicker in the light of fancy
Seldom to seem what it is,
rarely to be what it seems.