[stylist] Poem - "In Case of Falling Astronauts"

[Lynda Lambert]

the history of the universe in abbreviated snippets...I enjoyed reading this 
today! It's a collection of powerful images, a collage, scrambled and 
intersperced, flung out into the atmospher and beyond.  Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William L Houts" <lukaeon at gmail.com>
To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 5:17 PM
Subject: [stylist] Poem - "In Case of Falling Astronauts"


> Hey Peeps,
>
> Here's a longer poem I wrote some time ago.  It's a bit of a warhorse, 
> from the days when poetry slams were still the fashion.  I think it still 
> might have legs.
>
>
> --Bill
>
>
> ---
>
>
> In Case of Falling Astronauts, Break Glass
>
> I.
>
> o heavenly desert for a wandering tribe, nazareth to astronauts;
>
> cradle of prophets with mirrored faces, our mystics of absolute zero,
>
> striding through hells of kelvin heat or leaping lead-footed for joy.
>
> we knew no domes of glass nor wise antennaed
>
> mayors would meet our traveling boys, flown so far
>
> from the roiling blue, flung so far into darkness and dust.
>
> but if a desert, still a place of birth, you anvil moon:like silver
>
> minted fresh, we'd shine our lives by the pure silent hammers of sol.
>
> this was our dream, our all-american dream of astronauts
>
> grave and poetic:faces full of infinity, minds on plans
>
> for compassionate cities, angelic hands at work in the vine-
>
> yards of science.the rocket packs and rayguns were toys,
>
> dolls in the hands of scheming boys we never thought they'd keep.
>
> what we were after, as always, was space:another place to go
>
> when nowhere was left
>
> a heavenly desert to a wandering tribe,
>
> second bethlehem to a dream.
>
> II.
>
> I wonder what plagues we gave to the Indians of the Moon,
>
> I struggle to remember which treaties we broke with the LunarSioux,
>
> the precise year of that famous ambush sprung by
>
> the cavalry of the American Third Orbital Marines upon the Lakota
>
> living by the shores of the Sea of Tranquility.
>
> And I forget exactly how many chiefs we lashed to the coils
>
> of fusion drives, or swung from rocket gantries
>
> or tumbled into void with a one two three.
>
> I get all the dates mixed up, but from where I'm standing
>
> I can still smell tipis burning on lunar prairies.
>
> III.
>
> When I still played hopscotch,
>
> when i knew just how to throw the stone
>
> and what these lines are for,
>
> I read about Laika, the dog in space,
>
> How the Russians loved their doggy cosmonaut
>
> (a snapshot from some grade school primer:
>
> white coated men and a scrappy mutt
>
> with a lolling tongue) and how she loved her cozy Sputnik, just enough 
> room for her race.
>
> I imagined the husky steering her tiny craft:
>
> Adroit Captain Laika, the dog between worlds,
>
> equal parts Egyptian goddess and loyal pet;
>
> the constellation, drawn in the sky with
>
> stars of chalk, the constellation given life,
>
> the Hunter's Dog unleashed to gambol and howl
>
> fully enfleshed in the backyards of night.
>
> When I still played hopscotch, and knew
>
> the counting rhymes, and how to get through the game
>
> without hitting the lines, I read about Laika:
>
> but not how her husky fur must have burned
>
> in a blaze when her tiny cage returned to earth,
>
> nor a word for her terrified yawp as the Sputnik
>
> crashed through a ceiling of air, splashed down
>
> in the southernmost part of the Indian Sea.
>
> I know she died before I was born, and how.
>
> But I learned it late, and now I call her:
>
> here girl, come on down now and lick my hand;
>
> and brief me on dreams brought low,
>
> dogs in space,these chalk marks
>
> whose use I used to know.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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