Miles beyond the inlet
crazed with pelicans
and the putty-blue churning
of the Banana River,
an iron thatch
stood its ground
like a sentinel,
gripping the stiletto
rocket to its heart.
The sky put on a summer frock.
Cloudbanks piled
like a Creation scene,
dwarfing all
but a ghostly trail
embossed on the gravelpath
below (like the tread
of some rampaging mammoth)
where, earlier,
a tons-heavy slug
creaked its towering heft
along, to ferry
the Viking craft upright.
We glued our hopes
to that apricot whoosh
billowing across the launch pad
in spasms, like the rippling
quarters of a palomino,
and now outbleaching
the macaroon sun,
as a million pounds of thrust
paused
a moment
and then the bedlam clouds let rip.
Gnats capered everywhere
in the marshland viewing site,
driven from their quiddities
by the clamor
pealing tindery to world’s-end.
And how I envied
the wheat-colored moths
flitting about in a spry tizzy,
blind to that rising
persuasion called flight
groaning on a tower downwind.
I knew surf-jockeys
rode their rollercoaster sea
on this ordinary day
in an ordinary August;
couples huddled on beachtowels
as if on loveseats.
Perhaps they’d see
an odd blaze far off,
Viking slide into the air
like a flint into water.
I was thinking of vigils:
radar hubs
following the craft
like sunflowers,
tracking dishes worldwide
now and again
rolling their heads
as if somehow
to relieve the tension,
how we’d gathered
to affirm the sanctity of Life
(no matter how or where
it happens), and be drawn,
like the obelisk we launch,
that much nearer the infinite,
when iron struts
blew over the launch pad
like newspapers,
and shock waves rolled out,
pounding, pounding
their giant fists.
My highflying pulse
dove headlong,
and then, like a cagebird
whose time was due,
my heart lifted off
into the breathtaking blue.