Astronauts

                  Astronauts        Riding flaming columns           Into unknown space; Monitoring instruments      Juddered by displaced Huge atmospheric pressures           Out of their control; Juggling with computer-jargon;      Hoping unseen defects      Won’t cancel their bold try And write a fractured epitaph           Upon the smoking sky. […]

                  Astronauts

 

     Riding flaming columns

          Into unknown space;

Monitoring instruments

     Juddered by displaced

Huge atmospheric pressures

          Out of their control;

Juggling with computer-jargon;

     Hoping unseen defects

     Won’t cancel their bold try

And write a fractured epitaph

          Upon the smoking sky.

 

Like fabled Icarus who flew

     To far, too high, too soon –

The brave ancestral pioneer

          Of heroes yet unborn

Who shall achieve the mastery

          Of fire and of force –

They risk disaster with each flight

Through earth’s thick atmosphere,

     Yet dare continue in the quest

To launch our proud humanity

          From its primal crib

Towards those distant planets where

          Our posterity must live

When Earth no longer can sustain

     Its growing populace;

          Or the swelling sun

Makes it an uninhabitable place.

 

     They ride the flaming columns

          Into the unknown,

     Searching for the flightpaths

          To our future homes.

Author: J. A. Bosworth

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