"Viewed from the distance of the moon, the
astonishing thing about the Earth, catching the
breath, is that it is alive. Photographs show
the dry, pounded surface of the moon in the foreground,
dead as an old bone. Aloft, floating free beneath
the moist, gleaming membrane of bright blue sky,
is the rising earth, the only exuberant thing
in this part of the cosmos. If you could look
long enough, you would see the swirling of the
great drifts of white cloud, covering and uncovering
the half-hidden masses of land. And if you had
been looking for a very long, geologic time, you
would have seen the continents themselves in motion,
drifting apart on their crustal plates, held afloat
by the fire beneath."
