I stand uneasy, barefoot on chiseled gray
Rock of a mock flying saucer. No deck, no rail,
Just a floating chip off Laputa, or that Magritte oil
Of the gothic castle on a monolith adrift.
I'm just a passenger. Round me the crew
Shambles akimbo on rolling whaleback too.
There is no well, no nook to cling,
No hold to hold to! Bare rock. Flying.
We skim over rolling prairie silvergreen,
On a wild world, huger than Earth, for no
Curvature's visible at all; the pale downs fade,
Evaporate in haze a hundred miles away.
I'm thin as ever, but feel a pregnant pull;
Just twenty kilos more, I guess--quite bearable.
The big world's iron core must be Earth-small.
The hills end suddenly in seacliffs! Raw,
The scarp three kilometers sheer. Ten
THOUSAND feet, with toes of silver foam.
Islands fade in salmon haze, off to infinity.
The low sun-eye glares copper on the sea.
Our ponderous rock-lens dreamily slows,
Hovers just past the brink, full two
Miles of gold abyss below. The only sky-hue
Is an azure berry-burst on narrow ledge.
On the turf, as it frays to precipice-edge
Looms a giant. Bearded, fourteen feet tall.
Ragged furs, ox-thighs, black staff. Our mate
Sidles to rim of our bobbing craft and calls:
"Once I fell off such a cliff. I hit a ledge
And was rescued; but you're too pon-
derous to lift. Mind the edge, beware!
If you slip, you're gone."
"I LIVE here!" he roars. "Don't you DARE
Lecture me, you smug little
TOURIST!" On
The dreadful T-word, red rockwalls shake.
The vast world trembles, horrified. I wake.
