Our Nearest Neighbour

Our nearest neighbour under the celestial sphere

That dome peppered by an infinite number of stars

The moon, only satellite of mother earth

Its familiar phases mark its monthly cycle

From Crescent through Gibbous then to Full

And back again to another New moon

Our faithful companion in the sky

Its surface pockmarked by craters

The remains of collisions with

Asteroids, comets and meteorites

Three million years ago the biggest impacts

Caused the ‘seas’ Mare Serenitatis

Mare Tranquillitas, Mare Vaporum

And many more

This ghostly sphere has delighted our telescopes

Since the day of Galileo Galilei

Ken Fisher