July 25: Epilogue

Fifty years ago,

           the crew was back,

                 Mission Control was silence,

the great deed done,

           the martyred President memorized,

                  the godless foe vanquished,

                      the world, if for a moment, united

in an experience that many expressed

          in a transcendent light as

                the greatest week since Creation,

                     the most momentous event since life

                                  lifted itself out of the seas,

humankind making the first step to the stars.

*

We know what happened

                 to that grand unity, idealistic vision.

We know, and so lets leave the story

               there, without limits

when the entire world appeared to be

                                          Go for TLI.

*

Then, fifty years ago, and perhaps now again.