Watch This Space

Yet another wonderful morning of lap swim, space program, and NPR, including a "parking lot moment" (just like a "driveway moment") to listen to another story on the last flight of the Atlantis, and last flight altogether of the space shuttle.

It was nice to hear clarified in this interview that the public still thinks of the astronauts as heroes and the space program as being about "space exploration," even if the realities include more benefits re: pure science, military/industrial complex, Cold War (now done), and if some consider the current phase of the program a "disappointment" since it did not reduce the costs of space travel. "How could it?" one wonders, given 1) the technology involved 2) the economy 3) the dangers of any kind of cost-cutting re: safety of astronauts.

Again today the coverage made clear that no one really knows what's next in the space program. As the interview cleverly put it, "Watch this space."

I watched a colorful rubber-band ball bounce toward me off my windowsill this morning when I finally came inside once a brief rain blew in--very brief, but the breeze was lovely. Then the rain stopped, and I went out to hose-shower the impatiens, columbine, violets, sweet william, and yellow poppy that had not got anything through the leaves of the trees and overhang of the roof...

...and watched this space on my front stoop fill with Magnolia: A Journal of Women's Literature, with my poem "Lazy Heart" in it! Yes, "Lazy Heart" is, in part, about the space program! And, more overtly, about civil rights and the walk from Selma to Birmingham.

"Lazy heart" is a condition suffered by astronauts, and in the poem I also apply it to the bishop who advised people to stay home rather than join in the march, despite the plea from his fellow clergyman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Amazingly, this was all happening at the same time, in a kind of Random Coinciday in our U.S. history.

I am so moved that editor Gayle Brandeis quotes the end of my poem saying these lines could be "the theme song" of this collection. Wow! "Mother Muriel would be so proud," she goes on, about the writers in this book. To be linked to Muriel Rukeyser is a real honor; she's the one who said, "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."

You can hear writers read work from this volume here, at Her Circle Ezine, and order the book here, at Amazon.  You can read about Gus Grissom, the "Molly Brown" Gemini flight, and his other accomplishments and tragic death here. Poor Gus.