Having left Doha and its problems behind, together with the desert, I have now arrived back at my home base of Miami, for another kind of heat. I will be here for a few weeks before heading back East. Hopefully, this poem is appropriate to kick-start my postings.

Earthrise
By John Herlihy

The darkness shapes infinity out there in deep space;
Eternity gives rise to forever in this desolate place.
Endless space and time may seem hardly sublime,
Limitless and timeless wonder with very little shine.

The old man on the moon has seldom a thing to say;
But the eternal void speaks volumes in its own way.
The stars in the heavens seem in surround-sound;
Listen closely, they can be heard twinkling all around.

The moon itself known as that glorious lunar orb,
Measuring borrowed light for the earth to absorb.
Pale and silvery, milky white or misty, feathery blue;
The moon holds mystery that only the angels knew,

What is the moon but a source of cavernous rock,
Cold and desolate, stunningly alien, as if in shock.
The moon turns on its axis but seems fixed in place,
While it rotates around the Earth at a leisurely pace.

Stars cannot save the realm of space from its fate;
Ghostly light fills the horizon and all in its wake.
To be alone and cast adrift on a sea of endless night,
No one can image the meaning of this forsaken plight.

Imagine a moment sitting on the edge of a lunar crater,
To gaze on the stony moon face designed by the Creator.
A vast loneliness would fill the utter desolation within,
To mingle together with the soulful cry of a single violin.

When behold, rising silently over the hem of the moon,
The crescent Earth fills the Void in all its luminous bloom.
For one brief moment, the planet glows like a blue marble,
Amid vast desolation, angels witness this glorious marvel.

The earthrise offers this gift upon the moon to bestow,
Decked in cloud cover, oceans and continents on show.
A display of seasons across the planet make their round,
The old man wondered if life on earth could be found.