Apollo 11 at Fifty-Five
What shall we say
Of the lunar landing
Aldrin
Armstrong
Collins
The many who built the ship
Built the rocket
The many who were on the crew
That day
Whose words and switches
Made things happen
I was there
With the nation
With the world
With the Soviets
Disappointed maybe
Angry
Though I think impressed
All the same
And also many were
Admiring
I believe
Other democracies
Might have been
Envious
Too
That the USA pulled off
What fictively had happened
Already in
Novels
And in the movies
(sometimes
first as novels)
Too
I’d like to think
That all the human spirit
Was attending
That was alive
That day
Astounded
And admiring
One small for a person
One giant leap
For humankind
For all of us then
And now
(and
does this verse
look like a launching
maybe
the beginning
of a landing)
C L Couch
Photo by Sebastian Bjune on Unsplash
[if I could have found an eagle landing on the water, well, maybe I would have posted that for symbolism]
Exhale
Out goes the bad air
In goes the good
That was from a cartoon, I think
Someone pushing water out
And hoping oxygen got in
In an animated way
And in an animated way
That’s all I remember
Maybe a vague image in black and white
But everything was black and white
We didn’t have a color set
As for a time, no one did
In what was technology but
Shooting rockets into space
Removing oxygen in liquid style
One-way breathing
For a planet
Awaiting returns for investment
Time and space, material and energy
Before we got the set
And got Apollo
Earthy breath
That is imagination
C L Couch
Photo by Bill Jelen on Unsplash
The June 29, 2018 launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was scheduled for 5:42:42 AM in order to rendezvous with the International Space Station. Every rocket has a plume of exhaust, but only the rockets launching just before sunrise will show up like this one.
relative sky
moonrise
Earthrise
sunrise, of course
stars rise
many in constellations
one extremity after
the other
sword point
cup rim
crown
the other rises, too
all the rest
stars that form in different names
elsewhere
fifty years
I saw the landing
and the steps
on a black-and-white TV
which I doubt made much difference
than for our neighbors who had color
maybe I missed the red and blue
in the stiff flag
that looked to wave when
the astronaut shook it
I wondered about Collins
all alone up there, still
seventy miles above
I trust they talked with him a lot
kept two conversations going
with the LEM and the command module
with Houston and the others
who took part
maybe one big talk
keep talking, everyone
whatever your horizon
for a time, at least
we’re all friends here
C L Couch
Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece
Patar knight – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7023940
clcouch123 
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