The moon is full.
Tonight, she smiles down
At us, unknowing
Of the pale death
On her bright kisses
From the face we loved,
The face that killed.
The astronauts,
Like her, could not have known
We made first contact
With another race,
Too small to see,
Who wanted to know us
From the inside.
We learned few
Discovered, all too late,
The creatures that
Had found themselves on Earth
And would not die,
Unlike us human beings.
That we could do.
No one was spared.
And when the lights went out,
The corpses sat
Together in the streets
And watched her rise
And fall, who watched us rise
And fall in turn.
We who remain
Still look up at the moon,
Her pale face
Like those of all the souls
Her children knew.
She is so beautiful,
Despite it all.
Shakespeare was right.
She is an errant thief
To take this world
From us, for her and hers.
Her children will
Grow strong on this blue dot
When we are gone.