Apollo On Tour, 1971
- Apollo on Tour, 1971
The men we are: Gods in ruin, Ralph said. Now among the ruins we’ve made. The uses we make of myth Prove it’s more than a matter of perspective: The thing that went around the moon Godfathered by Apollo Is on tour but went the distance needed To trap us here together To see the way the atmosphere of our breeding Hangs around us.
It’s more than a matter of perspective: We haven’t gone deep enough into space Or ourselves To see the Man in the Earth. What we see looking both ways Is a gargoyle’s grin.
What we need is to reconsider the myths— To send a JOHN HENRY out there and back To remind us what a man can be. When the crowds touch it in passing They might remember For whom the fire was stolen.
Gerald Barrax was Professor of English, Poet-in-Residence, and Editor of Obsidian at North Carolina State University at Raleigh. He is author of four volumes of poems, Another Kind of Rain, An Audience of One, The Deaths of Animals and Lesser Gods, and Leaning Against the Sun. In July, 1997, From a Person Sitting in Darkness: Selected and New Poems, his fifth volume, was published by the Louisiana State University Press. He has recently retired to West Chester, Pennsylvania.
