FOURTH ASTRONAUT

by Rick Mullin


Painting by Alan Bean, the fourth astronaut (Apollo 12) to have walked on the moon. He died on May 26, 2018. 


“I think of myself not as an astronaut who paints,
 but as an artist who was once an astronaut” —Alan Bean, Apollo


His name connoting photosynthesis

in pods on earth, he traveled to the moon

and stood in fields of carbon dust and darkness.

No one saw it in his way—the dune

of oxidates, the earthrise glinting fire

on the helmet of his mate. The silent night.
He gathered specimens of stone and scraps

of wreckage from an unmanned satellite.

He worked for seven hours, drawing maps

in his imagination to a higher

landscape in a timeless super 8

of the recurring astral mystery.

The dream. While others met a common fate

in business, he resolved on painting history,
unpacking samples to a canvas of desire.


Rick Mullin's newest poetry collection is Transom.
       

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