The child of the moon

after Pablo Neruda

You were the child of the moon.

The world boomed and pumped iron.

It didn’t give a fig for your presence.

But when bright rails were put down,   

years ago and more, you didn’t feel

the cold shoulder; nor did the sky

weigh on your crammed heart – not

one movement or gesture of yours

was invested in the pounding powers

or the town that clattered into being.

You were the child of the moon

and you never raised a finger or a toe

in the race, in the spectacle of what

they let fly at bright Aldebaran,

at Galbalgrab or Rigel. And for the low,

who could only see and hear and follow,

you suffered pains beyond astronomy -

no sobbing allowed, no falling stars

in your verse, but your life-sap spent

on white, on dust, on the stone years.

You were the child of the moon

and you neither mined nor minded ore,

nor cut wood - the world was never

yours: it’s for diggers and grifters,

for the builders of big buildings;

mortar binds their coming and gives

strength to their designs, to the work

of hands stained by mud and blood,

so you have no air to shout out loud.

And this makes you the child of the moon.