This morning's poem


I read one every morning. Beats the so-called news, which rarely has anything surprising to say. This morning's was a poem by a Turkish poet in Atlanta Review, "Moonbath: a Lullaby" --

earth's softest sunbath,
photons fresh in from a lunar landing,
but weary of miles, ninety-two million out
to the iron'rich seas and glassy meadows
of a four-billion-year-old crater-pocked rock

The poem got me to thinking about the salad days of the rocket biz, and about how sad I am that I can no longer get my father to reminisce about his work. He's that far gone in Alzheimer's that he doesn't remember writing the book he wrote on management of rocket projects.

But then I remembered that we're doing The Sixties all over again lately, with recreated "Freaky Folk Music", mini-skirts and moon shots. In August, Europe is taking aim at the golden eye in the sky. According to the BBC, they're ready to "light the blue paper" -- in my Dad's day, it was called "lighting the candle" -- and sending Smart 1 (yes, I know, really lame name) into space.

In 2018, NASA plans to plant another flag on the pocked orb. I suppose that's if North Korea or Iran doesn't get there before us. In the meantime, they have taken down the old Apollo tower because it was classified as hazardous waste. Nuff said.