NPM: The Earth Is a Satellite of the Moon

I wish I could say I was pleased that five of you have risen to the occasion (the National Poetry Month occasion) and posted Western Haiku for all the world to admire, but I won't really be satisfied until the headcount enters the double digits. Read to understand what it's all about, then post a haiku of your own composition in the comments section. Don't worry about creating a masterpiece; I don't care if it's not good as Basho. I just care that you try.

Tonight we'll read a piece by Nicaraguan soldier and poet Leonel Rugama (1949 - 1970), another person about whom I know next to nothing. I'm only familiar with this one piece of his, which was shown to me by Daisy Zamora, one of the most remarkable human souls I've had the pleasure of meeting.

Reading this again makes me think back to a brief argument I once had with a friend of mine named Nickie. She's heavily into the humanitarian scene; she spent time studying abroad in Senegal, served in Benin with the Peace Corps. for two years, and recently visited Afghanistan. The argument was a simple one: Nickie said she saw no purpose to the space program, and that all the money we were about to spend fixing the Hubble Space Telescope would be better put to use on Earth. I disagreed, saying that any endeavor that expands mankind's knowledge of reality is well-worth the cost, even if it doesn't necessarily lead to any immediate practical results. (People during the 18th century probably called Luigi Galvani frivolous for dedicating so much of his time to playing around with the muscles and nervous systems of live frogs. It's largely because of him that we understand how electricity works, and why it is possible for you to be reading about him on your electric-powered computer.)

While it has gone out of fashion over the last half-century, poetry can be used to make a trenchant political point -- to put forth an argument or perspective without resorting to preaching, name-calling, or heavy-handed persuasion. Reading Rugama's piece makes me think back to my conversation with Nickie and wonder if I could answer her with the same conviction as before.


The Earth is a Satellite of the Moon

By Leonel Rugama
(Translated by Sara Miles, Richard Schaaf & Nancy Weisberg)

Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1
Apollo 1 cost plenty

Apollo 3 cost more than Apollo 2
Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1
Apollo 1 cost plenty

Apollo 4 cost more than Apollo 3
Apollo 3 cost more than Apollo 2
Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1
Apollo 1 cost plenty

Apollo 8 cost a fortune, but no one minded
because the astronauts were Protestant
they read the Bible from the moon
astounding and delighting every Christian
and on their return Pope Paul VI gave them his blessing.

Apollo 9 cost more than all these put together
including Apollo 1 which cost plenty.

The great-grandparents of the people of Acahualinca were less
hungry than the grandparents.
The great-grandparents died of hunger.
The grandparents of the people of Acahualinca were less
hungry than the parents.
The grandparents died of hunger.
The parents of the people of Acahualinca were less
hungry than the children of the people there.
The parents died of hunger.
The people of Acahualinca are less hungry then the children
of the people there.
The children of the people of Acahaulinca, because of hunger,
are not born
they hunger to be born, only to die of hunger.
Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the moon.