The Selenite Province

When Antares stirred the mind
And the old sky burned with signs
Astronomers locked away
Their tables of forgotten time

Earth became a cameo
Suspended in the outer dark
While the nebulae unrolled
Ancient ligatures of stars

On the dials there flashed again
Ascensions, declinations
Like inscriptions left behind
By extinguished generations

On the Far Side of the Moon
In a distant selenite land
Stands a city carved in silence
Built by no remembered hand

Ancient Germanic emblems
Beside a stellar dynasty
As if two forgotten calendars
Shared the same chronology

There were seven-sided halls
There were gates of anorthite
There were hidden docking vaults
Far beyond all traffic lights

Through the vaulted galleries
Marched the ranks in measured pace
Bearing weathered insignia
Of regiments erased

And the elders of Aldebaran
Grave and luminous to behold
Studied charts of vanished systems
In repositories old

On the Far Side of the Moon
In a distant selenite land
Stands a city carved in silence
Built by no remembered hand

Ancient Germanic emblems
Beside a stellar dynasty
As if two forgotten calendars
Shared the same chronology

In the lithographic archives
Of a monastery below
Lay cosmographies depicting
Regions no one else could know

Every plate revealed
Star archipelagos afar
Every codex traced a passage
Past the dominion of pulsars

When the vessel turned once more
Toward interstellar seas
Not a voice disturbed the twilight
Not a word disturbed the peace

On the Far Side of the Moon
In that distant selenite land
Still the hidden city lingers
Beyond the maps of humankind

And whoever watches heaven
With unwavering devotion
May yet find their names recorded
In that station still unspoken

Far beyond the reach of history
Far beyond what we have known
Waiting in the lunar darkness
Waiting to be found