When I was a boy, I looked at the moon through a silver telescope - I was twelve years old, thin and brown, living in Malta - one of my dad's Navy chums, Lieutenant Thomas, was an amateur astronomer - when we went round his flat for tea and horses' necks, he'd talk about the planets and the stars -
We'd go onto the flat roof of the apartment block - below us were the deep stone streets, the churches with their golden altars - when there were holy festivals, saints' days, rockets would hiss into the night sky, exploding into lurid stars over the ramparts - firecrackers would scatter plump matrons - the air would smell of gunpowder - I'd watch the heavy statue of the Virgin, carried to the beach - the young men would stagger with their sacred burden into the dark sea - bells would toll in all the church towers -
But looking through Lieutenant Thomas' telescope, I'd be falling into a silent sea - there was the moon - I could see its mountains, its craters its seas, all lit with a yellow glare - I was far away from my morning life - I was in a radiant desolation -
I thought of Lieutenant Thomas, of my boyhood in Malta, when I was at Shipstall Point, late one Autumn afternoon - night was coming - in the sky, above the calm channel, the silky mudflats, I could see the moon - bands of delicate cloud were coloured by the sunset - I could hear the cries of seabirds -
In my hands, I felt the chill surface of the telescope - I felt its eyepiece against my eyelids - a warm dusty wind blew over my skin - my heart lurched inside my chest - I was brimful once more of innocence and wonder -
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