Lisa Lerma WeberPoetry, Creative Nonfiction and Photography Contributor
Space Cadet, Awakening, Wild 2, Bright eyes, Hope, Flight, Phoenix
miss macross
Today I received an email from the National Aviary. It was a follow-up to my job interview three months prior. It read something along the lines of:
We apologize for the delayed response. We had an unexpected hiring furlough but are now ready to proceed. We would like to offer you the position of [INSERT DREAM TITLE HERE] with an immediate start date.
I received this email while I was at work. Now it is several hours later, and I have yet to respond. Instead, I am working on a longform investigative article with little prospect for publication. It is about the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 lunar rock samples that then-U.S. President Richard Nixon gave as goodwill gifts to over 100 nations and states. Nixon had small Moon dust samples placed in acrylic capsules, which were then attached to wooden display stands with banal dedication inscriptions and depictions of each nation or state’s flag.
Upon delivery of these goodwill gifts (which were distributed in the early 1970s), their fates were no longer tracked by NASA or any other U.S. entity. Many recipients thought of them as little more than a novelty item – if humanity had reached the Moon before, then we’d surely reach it again. The dust was essentially worthless. But the last manned Moon landing was on 1972, and the gifts are now worth millions of dollars.
Dozens of these gifts have disappeared in the decades since the last Moon landing. Some have been found; in the strange cases of Colorado, Missouri, and Nebraska, they were later found in the homes of former state governors. In Alaska, the Apollo 11 sample was taken by a teenager from the ashes of a fire that destroyed the Alaska Transportation Museum in 1973.
Other samples were lost during political strife, like the Apollo 17 sample given to Cyprus around the time of their 1974 coup d’état. The Apollo 11 sample given to Spain disappeared following the death of General Francisco Franco. The Apollo 17 sample given to Romania disappeared in the years after former President Nicolae Ceaușescu’s execution by firing squad. Rumors of the fates of these gifts range from their destruction to their sale on the black market.
Some of the goodwill gifts were blatantly stolen and have yet to be found. These include Sweden’s Apollo 11 sample, stolen from a museum in 2002, and Malta’s Apollo 17 sample, stolen in 2004. These thefts have largely baffled both scientists and law enforcement officers, as without proper documentation these samples are totally unverifiable and completely worthless. And yet, years have passed without a single lead in almost every lunar sample theft case known in the world.
I’m not sure why this topic caught my eye, but I fell down the rabbit hole of missing space rocks while researching lost works of art and media. As it turns out, there are lots of things missing in this world. Some are movies made on flammable film, or censured books. In the case of the Amber Room, an entire Wonder of the World can go missing. Lots of people go missing every day – some through foul play, while others simply decide to walk away from their lives and into oblivion. While writing this, I am thinking about the latter option. How viable is it to disappear oneself today, in a world of ubiquitous technology and obnoxious-but-supposedly necessary legal identification requirements? If specks of dust worth more than I’ll ever earn in my lifetime can disappear, then I should be able to, too, right?
After I came home from work, I re-read the email. The job offer has rattled in my heart and brain all day. I am happy at my current job, but I am also not happy. The pros and cons of each position are seemingly equal. If I were to quit my job tomorrow, would I be able to provide an honest reason, one that will let me sleep at night? I am the only one at my current job with my particular skillset. I suddenly feel an increased sense of worth, but I don’t see somewhere to cash out. Honestly, I don’t think that either are the best choice. Maybe I’ll never respond to that email. Maybe I won’t go into work tomorrow. I choose to spend my evening finishing another beer and researching missing pieces of humanity’s history.
Jessalyn Johnson
but the general faults in the solar system
or the notes in the margins providing insight
to temporary notions of faded ideas;
if nothing else but if the rain reversed
or if a collection of dust as a force of nature
were to become profoundly instrumental
the way children solve problems
and adults solve themselves
or the half life of something with a shelf life
gives away nothing but numbers.
Potential may erupt like a geyser
to show off like a prize
and harness like energy or another powerful force
for spinning in circles is a creative transit
that leaves with no destination
but arrives someplace new
in a universe that exists only in theory
yet allows lightning bugs to glow.
So if nothing else, there is one last iris
or else, and only or else, is there nothing.
Jennifer Wilson
I find it difficult to say things plainly, so I’ll just say that my mother’s hands were always full of bones.
She would hold them close and clutch them, bringing them to her chest when they were cold. And children with their flesh and their tears never phased her, their warmth not a thing to her mind. They just gave her good reason to relish the cold touch of bones and forego the future, enchanting the past and every power of death upon them as they sharpened themselves upon us.
Our marrow was so rich and warm. And our mother would eat it, unthinking, kissing the skeleton in a suck like an infant crying out that Mother Death and Our Lady of the Shadows never loved her so well as this.
She made us hollow. She made us naked, ripping to rags even our bedclothes as emblems to bind and beatify the dead.
O I wish, O Mother, in knots and offerings, that these votives make pretty bows of my motives. O ghosts, give me strength to withhold. Mother, make me not weak to be eaten. Give me death for myself to control.
And so her spells cast us as Others, unnecessary for her needs. Her adored drama, the sheer vastness and blankness of her bones bore us through. And, light as birds but flightless, we flew – the hollowness of our hearts coming through.
The fall to the floor seemed so much farther than our featherweight bones could forestall – and yet we met the earth with ease, barely bruised, free to wing wide through our down.
VisarPoetry Contributor
Sara Kelly
Kindness shoves little feet
forcefully into the Earth
during take off,
and soars into the sanctuary
of an open heart.
Humility rides
seeds of dandelions,
not unlike knights
charging into battle,
chanting repeatedly,
“love thy neighbor.”
We throw caution
to the wind,
But, alas, it falters,
for fear of the potential fall.
If we release love
into the atmosphere,
will it fly high into the sky,
and sing a song of hope?
Will it return to solid ground,
and reassure us of
all the beauty
that surrounds us?
Hilda Coleman (Jupiter)
I am kindly haunted by
the colors that dress my mind
of purple,
pink, and yellow,
a swirl of the trix-yogurt
I used to like as a kid
at 6am today
the morning was fluorescent,
intrinsically connected to
the city,
the palettes of color
aligned to resemble art
it was simple.
it was just like when we hiked this
together, except now
I was mixed
into the sky,
adopted by nature
All I needed were wings.
As I hiked that mountain myself
my hand laid on my chest,
echoing vibrations,
blood pumping
thump, thump,
My breathe shortened, then
rose up again,
like a thermometer
up and up
I was so alive.
my wrist beeped, as it read
“200 BPM”
and all I could think about
was how alive I could feel,
without you.
Ceinwen E. Cariad HaydonPoetry Contributor
Ceinwen lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. She writes short stories and poetry. She has been published in web magazines and print anthologies. These include Fiction on the Web, Stepaway, Three Drops from the Cauldron, Snakeskin, Obsessed with Pipework, The Linnet’s Wing, Blue Nib, Picaroon, Amaryllis, Algebra of Owls, The Lake, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Riggwelter, Poetry Shed, Southbank Poetry, Smeuse, Bandit Fiction, Atrium, Marauder, Prole, The Curlew, Confluence and The Foxglove Journal, Barren Magazine and Porridge Magazine. She was Highly Commended in the Blue Nib Chapbook Competition [Spring 2018] and won the Hedgehog Press Poetry Competition ‘Songs to Learn and Sing’. [August 2018]. In 2017 she graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University and she is now developing practice as a creative writing facilitator with hard to reach groups. She believes everyone’s voice counts.
