Poem: Angel Falling
I remember when Columbia first launched in 1981, the big fear was that the heatshield would melt. And I remember the shock of Challenger in 1986. Watching it happen again, in the run-up to the Iraq War, felt like an omen, a demonstration. This is what happens to democracies that aspire to empire. Torn apart by the bow shock, of the impossibility of becoming something they are not.
I don't know if that future, of a world without America, can be averted now. Perhaps there is still hope. Even if the worst comes, there will be hope. But not for the specific forms in which we used to give that hope a name, a shape. That moment is past, torn, burning gases already through the hull. The world is tumbling onto a new trajectory and it will hurt before we heal.
Angel Falling
(for Columbia)
into a cold blue sky
from cloudless black
our day has passed;
there is no turning back
the sun will rise again
on other shores
we who once glanced the moon
shall fly no more
beyond this sullen cloud
of scouring flame
a thunder sobs
across the fatal plain
no words can break
the dark that lies ahead;
bring out your palls and grieve
the future's dead
