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.