You have to envy
the old astronomers.
They could only gaze up
at nightly glitter sky,
up at the planets and the stars
and know they were
so very far away,
out of reach, and so,
could only be content to gaze.
Now, the heavens are too close.
Now, we are stung by the dream
of going up and out into the wild
black sea, to set our boots
upon the dust of untamed worlds
and to orbit stars so unlike our own.
It is almost possible.
It is possible,
we have gone up and done it,
but only the fewest of us,
and there are nations of us
burning in our bellies with
the desire to sail the sky.
Gazing is not enough.
This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.
