Terra Cognita Part 5

5.
Behind the golden mirror
that frames the rising Earth
above the mountains of the moon
is the skull beneath our skin.
And it chortles and it grins,
and stutters without meaning,
"Within your golden mirrors....
are but bags of rotted dreams."

Seal him up in tight white armor,
and place him tilting, inflated with wet dust,
on the sifted stuff of space, frozen in fine drifts
on the sealess surface of the moon.
Wrap a mirror made of gold about his face,
around that white helmet that seals out space....
and make him lope, loose upon the grit,
bobbing like some inflated toy, to stand aslant
beside the flag fixed on a stick
that it might for some time seem to flutter
bravely on an unclaimed airless world.
And call the Earth from its dark deep to rise
within that dread mirror until it, gravid, looms
above the pumiced dust that never lived,
above the razor teeth of mountains
raised beyond the hands of rain...

            "What are we doing here? "
            Making this record, this snapshot of the times.
            Scrape up some dust,
            climb aboard the flame,
            depart -- depart forever,
            that only prints of boots remain.