Endangered Species: The Moon

Dear Moon, Old faithful friend of lovers and romantics, you are our nearest celestial body, a main distance of 238,857 miles from Earth, with a lunar globe diameter Of 3473 kilometers, and nevertheless, we can hide you by a finger held at arm's length. Dear Moon, Only natural satellite of Earth, You move in a slightly elliptical orbit With a period of sidereal revolution In 27 days,7 hours,43 minutes And 11.5 seconds, But I still have some concerns Deep down in my heart. An untold variety of lunar seas, oceans, craters and mountains cover your face, and, along with the Sun, You cause the tidal action, too. And, o, dear Moon, You are always opaque, and you are only visible to us, because the Sun and Earthlight illuminate your surface. But this is not a serious problem. On the other hand, well, dear Moon, last night I was somewhat anxious, as the shadows were growing on the ceiling of my room into strange fairy tales. So I went carefully to the window and saw your enigmatic crescent of your visible face. And then I uttered a sigh of relief: You were still there! Still my dear Moon, I read that in time to come You might be redesigned And turned into something entirely different from today. Blueprints for Lunar settlements are already in the works on designers' tables and in the future cities built by astronauts will gyrate and revolve restlessly in aloof outer space. And so sooner than we would think, the night could be illuminated by artificial light, emanating from contrived satellites. And then dear Moon, perhaps, You will feel that you are not needed anymore and on a long white night You might even decide to leave us entirely alone, relocating to another cosmic arena and becoming less than an illusion of coded image on the retina.