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Subject: Sputnik anniversary...
Time: 2:23:00 AM EDT
Author: stuartatk
Inevitably the internet and TV news are groaning under the weight of stories covering the significance of today being the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik. I've already written a long piece about it - which is featured on the latest Carnival of Space, see below - so I won't write another. Instead I'll share my thoughts with you in this way...
RETREAT
Half a century since Sputnik bleeped,
leaping from the frozen steppes, creeping
up on a sleeping world to whirl
around the startled Earth; no surfing
of websites then, just frightened men
and women scanning the sky with wide
and “Can it be true?” eyes
for The Sputnik’s fleeting spark
cutting through the dark, a grain
of shining diamond dust – the first
ever seen – gleaming and rushing through
the night, a wondrous sight to celebrate
or terrify, depending on the country
you called Home…
Half a hundred times since then
our watery world has whirled around
the Sun and all the dreams
that Sputnik’s fleeting flight inspired
seem to have blown away. True, shuttles fly,
a space station skates across the sky,
but we are exiled on the Earth.
The blue and green world of Man’s birth
remains his only home, though once
we roamed the Moon’s ancient, ashen plains,
played golf on that alien land, planted
flags of bright red white and blue
and our footprints in its grey dust too –
But no-one walks on Luna now;
No lights shine in our satellite’s dark seas,
instead it mocks and teases us
as it moves across the sky,
wondering why we ran away and didn’t
stay to lay foundations for a second
home for Man. It cannot understand,
it makes no sense to stand in such
a glorious, golden place
only to turn your face away
from the Future’s blinding light.
I am ashamed of our Dunkirk retreat
from the solar system’s nearest beach;
afraid that in a thousand years
historians and scholars will sneer at us
and, hearing Armstrong speak
those famous New World words
will think our age absurd, and curse
our generation for its timid toe-dip
in the surf of the ocean of the night.
© Stuart Atkinson 2007
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10/4/07 9:41 AM