Where Once Had Glanced Infinity

Where Once Had Glanced  Infinity

We lost our lives when we lost space.
Dear God how could we lose that race?
The nation cried the day he died
But we fulfilled his dream.

And now a lifetime's passed away
And we sought solace in the day
When once again we could begin
To live, to strive, to dream.

But as the years have atrophied
We've lost the drive, we've lost the need,
And now we dwell within the shell
Of pompous apathy.

The ticks have worn away the clocks
And dashed our hopes on fetid rocks
While we embrace the cold disgrace
Of dull monotony.


Motivation and Focus.

This was started in November of 2008 and had a subject matter of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 8.  I set it aside and never really returned to it either through a lack of inspiration or a result of the personal upheaval in my life at the time, my wife of 18 years having just left me a few months before.

Least we get too morose, the wife leaving me was not a bad thing, just a thing with which I had to deal at the time as the custodial parent of a 16 year old son who was doing his level best not to pass the 10th grade.  Yes Gareth, I am talking about you.

I was reorganising things a few months ago and classifying work I had started and set aside as candidates for Suck Free Poetry Vol 3 and I have to be honest, I did not recognise this piece at first.

It has an interesting rhyme scheme and depends on a declining meter and at first I had written only two stanzas so as I reviewed it over the last few months I had to decide if it was going to be grouped as couplets stanza or three or just have all the stanzas end with the same type of trimeter rhyme pattern.

In the end I broke things down in my mind and found symmetry in the following meter and rhyme:

Tetrameter A
Tetrameter A
Tetrameter BB
Trimeter C

Tetrameter D
Tetrameter D
Tetrameter EE
Trimeter C

Since pairing was the underlying structure holding the overall structure in place, pairing the stanzas seemed to fit.

And here, with the Shuttle program winding down and a lack of political will to get off this ball of rock in any sustainable fashion I am seeing yet another of the promises made or implied to me in my youth fail and wither.

I am a product of the 1960s.  I grew up with hope and progress and social upheaval and have, nearly 50 years later, discovered that while we continue to reap the benefits the space program inspired, we as a culture have ceased to dream of anything but winning the lottery.

Perhaps when China sets up colonies on the Moon and Mars folks will get the whole fear-based motivation thing going again. 

Talk about a consolation prize.