7/12/2020 POETRY: WHITNEY FRENCHMINING THE MOON (A DÉCOUPÉ POEM)* I. a fine gray powder meet the Moon’s surface covering lunar regolith sift dust magic, playful probes discover Helium-3: a source of energy trapped in Moon equivalent value of a metric ton a possibility: harness it in reactors harness it in dust and heat 700 degrees centigrade power build specifically to manage large quantities for this main reason: dollars no one sent in proposals to the Moon but "cleaner than fossil fuels." II. kids, inhale the gas of the century! go be coal miners and recovering astronauts go be building well-funded helium reactors go go! roving robotic miner who walked the surface who meet our planet’s needs makes mining lunar program INTERLUNE a go, “probably the only way” says the Director of the University of Fusion Technology Program 59 million dollar lunar orbiter that kind of commercial operation needs fusion technology. putting tens of millions of dollars into bags full of regolith transport back during solar winds, research shown supply energy of a city of ten million for a year a shift in dependence from oil to dust breaking even within our limits push the lunar mining concept push the ocean through wind push us through rare reason. humans make their way cheap. III. ...inhale... 1,997 miners are close to breaking; take the concept back to Earth because “they won't go back to the moon” “going to go back to the moon” “piggyback on —“ “…transport back to the moon” “so far!” “space agency barriers” “don't see any others going back.” ...inhale... a variant of this plan in this playful time, liquefies transport captured like magic moonlighting. ...inhale… balls of gas, may not be right, 1,997 miners close to breaking. “won’t go back.” the miner collects $145, the Program collects $59 million this kind of gas, safer? 1,997 astronauts brought back building up, would pick up dust it's a possibility of choice. IV we are breaking the Ocean limits barrier dollars so now; project another way to repel the breaking, the building, the shift. if we sit on our hands by the factor of 3, we blast through Luna can’t go back no recovering a depth of choice. in fact, main reason seems to be generated in quest: miners shift the Moon’s surface. that’s enough to lure us back assuming we could float on facts, repel reactions geologists walked in enough crude, found a clean source overall helium-3 captured interest stimulus, captured thousands -- but the planet’s needs off the table. the breaking continues years go on… one way or another we trapped billions of humans without a Moon * “Moon Dust: The gray powder may hold a source of clean fuel.” By Dave Cravotta. Final Frontier, November/December Issue, 1996, pg 40. Whitney French is a storyteller and a multi-disciplinary artist. She is the editor of Black Writers Matter, a critically acclaimed anthology published by the University of Regina Press in 2019. Additionally, Whitney French is also the creator of the nomadic workshop series Writing While Black. The work featured is an excerpt of her forthcoming science-fiction verse novel. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.
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