[Gail White]

FELLOW TRAVELER

I'm five years old, a frosty autumn night;
my father wakes me, takes me by the hand,
and in our robes and slippers we two stand
outside to see among the stars a light
that moves. That moves. It's 1957.
My father says the Russians have leapt ahead.
By building missiles instead of baking bread,
the godless souls have marred the face of heaven.
Although I'll come to question what I'm told,
and move through zones of faith or unbelief,
that strange word, "Sputnik", always brings a brief
but heart-deep shiver from the cold,
a vision of the new star, far and high,
that traced its arc against the silent sky.