for Elon Musk

Merchants have multiplied more than the stars of heaven:
the poor ignorant people stare.
Dead riches, dead hands, the moon.
You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Systems participate in the act;
the machine had machines which told machines all about it.
Oh you who in spite of yourself have shown us the end
the generations labor to possess.
You should have a mirror.
What good is the moon to a heartless man?
A tree, would be enough.
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
saying KEEP OFF.
Look at what you’ve done to the landscape—
if God is not here He is not anywhere.
Clean up your room.



Robert Bly, James Tate, James Wright, Richard Hugo, Tom Clark, Marvin Bell, Alan Ansen, 
Louis Simpson, David Wagoner, Lisel Mueller, Gary Synder, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, John Ashbery, Donald Petersen, Lucille Clifton