Tag: Science Poetry
All was silent
On Pad 39 —
Fifty-one years
And thirty billion miles
Since Armstrong and Aldrin
Dipped their timid toes
In Selene’s Tranquil Sea
The clock strikes 10…
We hold our breath
9, 8, 7, 6, 5…
We close our eyes
4, 3, 2, 1…0
We jolt with liftoff!
As sky clears
And Bob and Doug
Ride a once-dormant Dragon
From ashes to aether
On the thirtieth of May.
Theirs is but one step
Chasing Time’s Arrow
To lift heavy ignorance
And shine a candle
Into quiet Unknown —
To climb up, up
Until we have scaled
Mons Vero
And we are at last
Alone with the cosmos.
Yet as we drift out there
We are never alone —
From Hypatia to Lovelace
Coleman to Jackson
Hamilton to Jemison
And me to you
Our candle joins the chorus
Of Elysian light in a
Cantata d’amore
Across every hue
Of the human rainbow
And so when we witness
Hephaestus’s Crucible of Creation
Breathing light into darkness
Forging stars, nebulae, galaxies
From pure chaos
We will discover a truth
Long known by the sinews
Of the heart —
From dust to dust
And ashes to ashes
We go as one
One Humanity
One Life
One Universe
All stardust.