Around earth’s blue-white marble sphere
the black is ancient, soundless, near;
starry webs burn in dawnlike glare.
A rhythm, the unending drone
of the star-work being done
beats in my brain. I am alone.
Sun rounds the planet. Heatless light
absolute cold cannot ignite
coats my suit’s skin in polar white.
I drift away. Now I observe
my spacecraft hug earth’s crescent curve.
My line winds slowly out. My nerve
fails—my umbilic cord snaps taut.
I clutch my jetpack, breathe, my throat
gulping like some night creature caught.
I saw myself cut, floating free.
2001: A Space Odyssey
planted that boyhood fear in me.
It drove me skyward, into space.
Now trained, methodical, I face
my mission in a placeless place.
Below, air fills each living lung.
Newborns cry; lovers’ songs are sung.
Bottled breath bubbles on my tongue.
Leathery Andean terrain
passes, and a white hurricane
like lather down a swirling drain.
The Amazon, a veined green leaf,
pours brown streams off the coastal shelf.
Earth is my home. I’ve had enough
of space where rocks fly bullet-black,
vampiric vacuum sucks each crack.
My silver tether tugs me back.
I hunch crushed in my fetal berth,
plummeting, flaming, earth to earth,
a tunnel I descend like birth.
Ocean laps like a mother’s love.
My hatch flips up; numb hands remove
my helmet. Lugged with weight, I heave
my head toward light as from a well.
Clear sky blue as a bird’s eggshell
blurs the black smoke-trail where I fell.
Face damp with tingling spray, I stare
across a gull-flocked seascape where
shiny fish dart and ships appear,
as if I called life, kind by kind,
to teem the world I left behind,
the world that I walked space to find.
