I rise as three planets
parade through the summer sky
under the ginormous Buck Moon

creeping slowly up the southeastern
horizon, much as a young male deer
might peer through the brush,

The Anishinaabe call this one
the Berry Moon, while the Abenaki
think of it as the Thunder Moon.

A moon by any name that travels
the skies tonight into tomorrow
reflects the full moon that lit my way

into the world 68 years ago, a moon
in Aquarius, as a president signed
into law the act that created NASA.

Ten years later men orbited
the moon for the first time, and ten
days before my 11th birthday,

two men walked on its powdery
surface. On every birthday I look up
and think of them taking that

giant leap for mankind under that
bright Aquarian moon, thankful
that I landed on the planet

when I did, part of the generation
hoping to save it, part of
the generation that has not.

But grateful that I, like the deer, was
delivered, wide-eyed and blinking,
into life on this precious blue marble.