Imagine a moon out of control, its attraction too great, its gravitational pull so intense that it threatens to destabilize a cosmos! This poem imagines such a moon; it references a romance which almost destroyed a world. Words and music by Aidan Andrew Dun, lunar image by Kerry Barbour.

Once, not long ago, yesterday even
you loomed and dazzled, fantastic lodestar.
Just over the north horizon, just gone
you are still an awesome curved presence.

I look at each day in a scientific light, compare
through the powerful dust-covered lens of memory.
As though all experience belonged in the past
I live in the terrible museum of our friendship.

Even now, mounting watchtowers and platforms
to stand in the observatory of real life once more
I remember enormous trajectories, derangements
catastrophic love imposed on so-called freedom.

Planets have been destroyed, whole oceans
burnt off, evaporated in less than half a second.
I was lucky to survive your beautiful proximity.
I trust I shall never see you again, fierce moon.

This poem features in AAD’s Selected Poems ‘Body of Work’.