The Rocks Took Charge

What heaven do stones have? What heights do they possess as they float through?

—Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), Stones of the Sky, tr. James Nolan

Many of us look for unique stones. We have shelves of stone, design rock gardens, or live in homes of river rock. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda shared this love for stone. He wrote about ordinary stones and precious stones, and the matrix of metal that might one day become a ringing bell. Gems, basalt, minerals; he so loved the world of matter that the inside of a lemon was a cathedral of crystals.

It is evident in his titles, The Stones of Chile, Sky Stones, and Isla Negra—where he built his home, a place of ocean sand, using the black stones of the region. After years of observing the earthworks at Machu Picchu, Neruda constructed his house in part from his sketches of that ancient Inca city, a place he said was created "stone upon stone," by the indigenous slaves.

Basalt appears frequently in his writing. It's a prolific mineral not only on Earth, but also on the moon. Neruda's geological knowledge included the contemporary understanding that the moon was formed when it broke away from Earth, leaving behind the great scar we call the Pacific Ocean—peaceful ocean. This moon daughter had remained in orbit around Earth since that first violent upheaval and leaving. But the moon is seen as peaceful; the largest darkness of the moon is called the Sea of Tranquility. When seen through a scope, the color is a misty blue of basalt. Some other locations on the moon are the Sea of Serenity and the Sea of Nectar.

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Those of us who witnessed the first journeys to the moon through the dark of space watched the Apollo 11 moon landing. We saw the shock of fire as the spaceship left Earth, the dismantling, and then the silence of the first three travelers passing through the universe. But more than learning about the moon, the result was how much we began to learn about our own planet, alive and beautiful, blue-green, floating in the universe. Visible from the distance were mountains and glaciers beaming like pearl and opal, magnificent oceans, and beneath them the same basalt as the moon's surface. Clouds crossed over, almost hiding the lava flow and crystal shine of a major mountain. What a planet. We humans were the invisibles; brief lives passing through, some of us on the way to work, some sleeping, others perhaps planting roses or trees. We were raising children or fighting for freedom. Many were fleeing the cruelty of dictatorships. The Vietnam War raged, and yet the moon-travelers designed a coin with an eagle carrying an olive branch in its talons, so others landing there would not mistake our world for one of warfare.

We are the only planet known to have life as we understand it. Scientists in numerous countries have since searched for a planet like Earth, though so many of us had not, and have not yet, learned to love or care for this one planet, even after seeing its grandeur from space. We still look for a duplicate, as if searching for a lost sister, or a daughter stolen by a repressive regime. In spite of a coin made to appear peaceful, we have been at constant war. Neruda was one of many who worked for peace in his lifetime as poet-politician. He wrote in his Memoirs, "Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread."

Shortly after that first journey through space, I worked in the Laboratory of Chemical Evolution at the University of Maryland. The Apollo 11 astronauts had carried home around forty-six pounds of stone, and one of these moon rocks was kept at the lab. It was held in a large glass case along the wall, sealed in case it carried something dangerous to humans.

I studied the ordinary-looking stone each day, watching for some small change. I willed a life form to appear, a lichen or...