January 11, 2022The Moon Is Covered in Rabbits and Trash
“This time it really is goodnight. There are still many questions I would like answers to, but I’m the rabbit that has seen the most stars. The Moon has prepared a long dream for me, I don’t know what it will be like—will I be a Mars explorer, or be sent back to Earth?”
—YUTU Moon Rover
For weeks we had an intriguing mystery:
a perfect cube popping over the horizon
of the moon. A moon hut, they called it,
they, not being nerds aka scientists, but
the cool kids publishing their words on
websites world-round. And we all knew
it was click-bait. It was wishful thinking,
not even propaganda like a waving flag
where there’s no wind (but there actually
is the reverberations of a pole jostled as it
was propped up by a man in a bulky suit).
We knew, knew it was just a rock (spoiler—
it was), but that didn’t stop us from clicking
and providing sweet, sweet ad revenue
(and, our personal browsing history via
cookies embedded in our computers).
Our super secret spy on the moon was
YUTU-2, younger brother of the original
‘Jade Rabbit’ rover YUTU—social media
sensation and part-time Chinese moon rover
that enthralled us with its cute messages
which were totally not just an advertising
agency putting an adorable face on its
usually bland scientific announcements
until we were unknowingly hooked and
then heartbroken when it finally faltered
and we marveled as the star-gazing bunny
gave us a tear-filled goodbye. Its successor
spied the ‘hut’ and again enthralled us all.
Now, no one posited it was one of the six
lunar modules NASA landed or crashed
and left on the moon’s surface, those
monuments (trash) were well-plotted,
and in some cases, surrounded by bags
of frozen urine and feces and packaging
too costly to retrieve from the moon.
Not to mention all of the machinery that
died or was abandoned like the aforementioned
Jade Rabbit. So when the Second Jade Rabbit
slow-rolled its way closer to the ‘hut’ it was,
surprise, surprise) a rock. Oblong, not quite round,
and not even enormous, just big enough to blip
the lip of a crater enough for the low resolution
camera to pixelate it. It was also dubbed Jade Rabbit
because, why not. We have enough unnamed rocks.
from Poets Respond