We sent a rover called Jade Rabbit to the far side of our moon,the other side of hiddenness as it faces away from this world,where cotton seeds sprouted at first, but don’t expect the moonto change into fresh cotton fields soon, thanks to airlessness –minus subzero in microgravity, absolutely freezing up there.The spacecraft which carried the rover was named for a ladywho drank the elixir of immortality and floated to the moon.She was the same lady who married the archer who shot nineof the ten suns scorching the earth. As a little girl, I wonderedif the lady was bored out of her wits from sitting on the moon,a blanched, cold place without almond cakes or green cheese.The moon is not made of jade, either. Of course, you can’t eatjade, but it is soothing to hold. Meanwhile, the moon’s far sidelies in utter darkness due to tidal locking, not what it sounds –actually the moon’s orbit and its rotation are not about oceansthe way we feel the ebb and flow of their familiar nocturnes.The darkness is more about not knowing what else is there.It is also not quite the opposite of what we do see, however.Don’t expect that the moon will turn into cotton fields soon.It is not made of mutton fat. Neither cassia trees nor rabbitsdwell there. On the far side, we find what we already know –that seeds cannot survive in such weather, and sadly, we getno closer to knowing God in doing so, not even in reachingout to graze the edges of the farthest stars, dear millennium,when God is shooting valentines of love into jaded heartswhere strings hold our atoms of flesh together, for now.