by Walt Garlington (November 2025)
–
______
Valiant voyagers
______Sailing for the moon,
Sudden solar flare
Tears our solar sail,
Engines won’t respond—
______Now an awful doom!
______
Heap of metal wreckage
______Buried deep in
Lunar regolith.
Power weakly pulsing,
Inside is dark and cold,
______And air is very thin.
______
Communications crippled,
______Little food remained
For the badly injured crew.
More days were passing,
Hopelessness increasing,
______Life difficult to sustain.
______
Then she appeared,
______A woman spectral
In appearance,
But whose presence
Brought us peace and joy,
______Didn’t make us fearful.
______
Dressed in long robes
______With a veil upon her head,
A Cross hung about her neck,
And in her hand a staff.
She walked slowly round the ship,
______Lips moving as she tread.
______
After she walked
______This circle several times,
She stopped, and suddenly
She stood among us.
We all stood still and stared,
______Frozen with fright.
______
But she, unflustered,
______Went calmly about the crew,
Touching the injured
Lightly with her staff,
Who shortly declared
______Their bodies were feeling renewed.
______
Once again she was outside,
______And thrust her staff
Into the ground.
She vanished, but
The staff then changed
______Into a sight that made us laugh
______
With joy and wonder:
______It became a living tree,
Covered with leaves,
Heavy with fruit.
I sent a crewman outside,
______That precious gift to retrieve.
______
It looked to all
______Like a lowly apple,
But the taste of it
Astounded everyone.
Sweeter, more satisfying,
______More memorable
______
Than any food we knew.
______To our surprise,
This same cycle
Of events continued
For several days,
______Until the moment that our eyes,
______
In the distance saw
______Another space-faring vessel.
We were blithe to see it,
But despaired of a way
To make them see us,
______Our power still critical.
______
The ghostly woman,
______Seeing our dismay,
Stopped her circling,
Raised her hands above her head,
And at once began to shine
______As brightly as the sun at noonday.
______
And straightaway
______The search-and-rescue team
Saw it and moved
To our location.
The woman disappeared,
______And we made ready to leave.
______
As we sailed home,
______Grateful to the lady
Who had sustained and saved us,
She appeared again among us and said,
“When you return, visit my shrine
______At Ely. I am Audrey.”
______
Regaining our health
______And granted leave,
No force could stop us
Until we found that place
Sanctified by her labors, thanking her
______With great fervor upon our knees.
______
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Table of Contents
Walt Garlington was born and raised in that part of Dixieland called Louisiana. A chemical engineer by training, he has spent the last several years writing full-time. He has written essays and poems for The Hayride, New English Review, The Tenth Amendment Center, The Abbeville Institute, Reckonin’, Katehon, Geopolitica, and USA Really. He writes regularly at his own web site, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.
Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast
One Response
Thanks for bringing the word regolith to my attention, I was not previously aware of it. Nice tale, but, who is Audrey and where is Ely? The only Ely I know of is in Nevada.