[Martin Elster]

No one need congratulate me (even though to me it feels like an accomplishment). I’m just posting this for the folks who would like to read a fun little rhyme at The New Verse News about last week’s awesome launch of Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket.

https://newversenews.blogspot.com/20...-roadster.html

[Mark McDonnell]

'Don't Panic' and Congratulations Martin!

I watched the launch. It made me feel eight years old again, it was incredible.

Fun poem!

[Martin Elster]

Many thanks, Mark. I watched the launch on video and was astounded when I saw those two boosters land so gracefully on their respective landing pads. It was almost like science fiction.

[John Isbell]

Our son who's an engineer was very excited.

John

[Ned Balbo]

I love poems about space & this one particularly, with its wit & surprising rhymes. Congratulations, Marty!

[Martin Elster]

Thanks, John. I think that launch gave people an inkling of things moving rapidly toward a future we cannot imagine. Your engineer son would certainly understand it to be a sign of what’s to come.

Thanks, Ned. I’m happy you enjoyed the poem, and I appreciate your kind words. The exploration of space is an exciting topic. Can you recommend other poems you’ve read on the subject? I’d love to read them.

[Ned Balbo]

Hi, Marty ~ Robert Hayden & May Swenson have written some wonderful poems about space or space travel, but I can't find them on line.

In the meantime, here are some I did find...

Adam Kirsch
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/now-no-one-looking

Tracy K. Smith (lots of my favorite science fiction films are in this one, too)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe...-full-of-stars

W.H. Auden
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/more-loving-one

Alice Oswald
http://a-poem-a-day-project.blogspot.../11/space.html

Tom Sleigh
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/space-station

Simon Armitage
https://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/english-astronaut

[Martin Elster]

Thanks, Ned. I actually had a copy of Tracy Smith’s book, but I can’t find it now. It’s possible I left it behind when I moved. I read a couple of those other ones, and look forward to reading the rest of them.

I’ve read that Auden poem “The More Loving One” before. It’s interesting when he says, “Were all stars to disappear or die, / I should learn to look at an empty sky,” it reminds me of what a lot of cosmologists say will likely happen to the universe: that all the galaxies will eventually recede beyond our cosmic horizon and the only galaxy we’ll be a able to see is our own Milky Way, and scientists will think that we are all there is, as they thought in the Middle Ages. This, of course, won’t happen for at least a trillion years from now. There could alternatively be a big crunch. No one knows for sure.