The New Hampshire high school teacher
who died yesterday in the space shuttle Challenger
articulated her enthusiasm
uncritical of America’s evasions and invasions
and devoted her life to her students
accepting perhaps too certainly the future in the firmament.
Her most interesting comment was the similarity she saw
in the teamwork at NASA and the classroom dynamic.
It is a neat parallel as noted by the president
that Sir Francis Drake also died on January 28th
390 years ago. Then, the ocean was the frontier. Now, as then,
the communal imagination gives birth
to new machines, minds and hands
whatever it takes to explore the world.
— Robert Ronnow’s most recent poetry collections are New & Selected Poems: 1975-2005 (Barnwood Press, 2007) and Communicating the Bird (Broken Publications, 2012). Visit his web site at www.ronnowpoetry.com.