ODE TO LAIKA
Through dark primeval forests, once
you led,
Watch kept on fledgling hunts in
ancient days,
To safely pave our way with padded
tracks,
To sense, avoid attacks and locate
prey,
protect, obey, seek out, chase and retrieve,
Our wants and needs, our
questions, fears and hopes,
embedded in your coat, wild sticky
burrs.
When we would search for
knowledge. You went first.
Millenia ahead, dark skies of
night,
Still frightened us, and so we
called once more,
Your loyalty before, to show the
way,
To navigate our dangers, blaze our
trails,
To selflessly avail us in our
quests,
Our voyages be blessed and
sanctified,
by angels asked to fly forth in
our stead,
as messengers to heaven. You went first.
The first to live in glory, first
to die,
To orbit in the skies above our
heads,
As you re-entered, in a stream of
flame,
How many gazed that night upon
your path,
and gasped or laughed, a shooting
star beheld,
How many as you fell, felt wondrous
bliss,
Or made a wish, or shared a
lover's kiss,
What hopes were gently pinned upon
your fur,
wild sticky burs, that night, when
you went first.
You lead us still, all innocence
and dreams,
all selfish petty schemes, and righteous
climbs,
all charity and crime, all lies
and truths,
all base abuse and soothing, healing hands,
All human plans and progress we
may make,
upon this earthly plain, or out
beyond,
will each have gone where you first pointed us-
our beast of trust, the best of
us, our friend.
the one we always send. I now
attest,
Lest ever we forget, that you went
first.
(From 'Tranquility Base', a poetry reading and art show from 2019, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing).