Smelling The Moon Poem by Mark Sauer

The Moon has a smell, only twelve have smelt;
Neil said wet ash; Buzz, gunpowder reek;
Schmitt, a spent bullet, but each of them felt
It was new, unearthly, strangely unique.
Dust from creation, when touched by live breath
For the first time in five billions of years
Awoke, like warm embers, rose from cold death,
Exhaled the scent of the demiurge tears:
Then faded forever into dead stone.
The scent of genesis does not linger
Save in the memory of these alone;
Just twelve have smelled the moon, and remember.
And when they are gone, as all will be soon,
There will be none left who have smelled the Moon.