Greetings poets! Welcome to Open Link Night. As always, this is your opportunity to share ONE poem of any theme or form.

For those of you who may have missed OLN #320, there was an announcement shared that dVerse poets will be represented in the Polaris Collection, headed to the MOON! If you haven’t already, please take the time to visit these websites to learn about the LUNAR CODEX, founded by Samuel Peralta. I did not know I could be so interested in “Nanofiche technology” and “commercial payloads”.

www.lunarcodex.com

www.youtube.com

Who is Samuel Peralta?

You may remember Samuel tending the pub here at dVerse!

I recently reached out to him and he provided this BIO:

“Samuel Peralta is an award-winning poet, and was a regular “Form for All” columnist for dVerse until 2014. He went on to create the Amazon #1 bestselling anthology series ‘The Future Chronicles’, became a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and a producer whose films have garnered two Golden Globe nominations and an Emmy Award. His latest project is the Lunar Codex, which over 2022-2024 is sending the works of over 25,000 artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers from 125 countries on time capsules to the Moon, alongside NASA’s Artemis project to return humans to the lunar surface. Two dVerse poetry anthologies are among the works Sam included in this historic project.”

The many collections by Samuel Peralta can be found at

www.future-chronicles.com

It is no wonder that I happened upon this exquisite poem by Samuel, highlighting the moon from so many angles. He shared with me that “three ‘phases’ of this poem are loaded on the Orion spacecraft on Artemis-I headed for orbit around the Moon late August/early September this year, the first launch of the Lunar Codex.”

Twenty-Eight Faces of the Moon

by Samuel Peralta

1

Earth, sky, stillness.
The evening unfolds
the rorschach of the moon.

2

We’d come home late that night.
They’d gone to bed, left the lights on
in the kitchen. Outside,
in the half-light of the moon,
I watched the lights move up
with you, like a drifting ember,
kitchen to living room to where
your bedroom curtains flickered,
glowed and faded
into dreaming.

3

The shadow is bluest
when it is cast by the moon.

4

What lingers:
The press of her cheek
against my shoulder.
The smell of moonlight
in her hair.

5

Suddenly you are far away,
further than the moon.
Further still
than the reach of my
outstretched hand.

6

Slow and uncertain,
like a breath held
before a moment of touching,
the moon dissolves into moonlight.

7

In the shadows a man and a woman.
The moon smiles its dark conspiracy.

8

There was a time
you thought the moon
was an enormous balloon
caught in the clouds.
Arms outstretched, you chased it
across rivers and hills,
as if you were the one who had,
unthinking,
let go the string.

9

The cat stirs. Beside it,
on your lap, the moon
has fallen asleep.

10

The night spills over
from the dark side of the moon.

11

If I could roll up this sky,
moon and stars,
and spread it out the night
you come home.

12

I should say this to you
in moonlight,
when there is no such word
as no.

13

The sound of your bare feet
on the kitchen floor.
Be careful you don’t
slip on the moon.

14

Two hundred and forty thousand miles
of kite-string.

15

Tonight, she wrote, the moon
was as full as that night
we met on the boardwalk.
I remember the wind
blowing the hair into my eyes.
As we talked I could hear
the creak of the boards each time
you shifted your feet.

16

August night.
The wind wraps itself around the moon.

17

The moon is cold tonight.
Please,
take me home.

18

Moon at my window,
these nights I dream
my father’s dreams.
I wake up, and I am
someone else.

19

Moon, sky, earth, water.
Water, earth, sky, moon.

20

Clothesline’s not quite empty.
Someone’s forgotten to bring in
the moon.

21

In the water the moon’s silver
scatters into emerald.

22

Moon as dim as my eyelids closing,
now you are as thin as the scythe-edge
of a shadow.

23

We parked the car by the knoll,
where we had the picnic last summer.
We got out and sat in front.
The moon haloed you. You laughed
when I said
you looked like a saint,
knocked my hat off and ran.

24

Your image
trembles in my heart,
the storm-tossed sea reflection
of a quiet moon.

25

When you will have
your hands crossed, thus,
over your chest, it will be
as if you were a blackbird
flying into the moon of your soul.

26

The moon curves into itself,
light into light.

27

Vanished.
Where the moon used to be,
there are not even any
stars.

28

In my dream I chart
my soul’s geography:
sea of tranquility,
ocean of storms.

Source: www.semaphore1.blogspot.com

Shared with permission.

As we wait and anticipate the works of dVerse poets soaring into space in 2024, we can join in celebration with Samuel as two other time capsules are preparing for their journey to the moon. The Peregrine Collection is scheduled to launch in October 2022 and The Nova Collection takes off in January 2023. Wow!

THANK YOU Samuel Peralta for turning your passion and dream into reality….and for taking us along!

Ok, dVersians….link up a poem.

Here’s how to join in:

• Post a poem of any style or theme to your blog or website.
• Click on Mr. Linky. Copy and paste the direct link to your poem and add your name.
• Include a link to dVerse on your blog page so others can find us too.
• Drop into the pub to say hello.
• Visit the links to other poets to read and comment.
• Have fun!