Lyrics
The news anchor droned his typical narrative,
gradually disappearing from my conscious thought.
Describing the leave-taking of the small group of pioneers,
he manipulated our human interest
with all the skill of engineering.
He told me of backstories and selection.
He pointed out the school children seated in the bleachers
who had come to watch their teacher,
now an astronaut, a hero.
The special report ambled along, turning into televised wallpaper,
moving toward the parting of the capsule from the housing-
lumbering toward yet another space voyage, now ordinary fare.
Then, as lift-off approached,
we of Earth held our breath in anticipation.
We met the moment with imagination
as if it were our own adventure about to take place.
This teacher-become-astronaut, a woman like me
-our boundaries blurring beneath my awareness-
was the featured relatable protagonist.
The newscaster made his accustomed noises,
repeating the countdown, anticipating flight.
And now I listened and watched with fascination,
witness to yet another scientific success story
being instantly conveyed.
The rhythm changed. Confusion ensued. An unfamiliar pause.
A nation held its breath and waited
for someone official to say aloud what we had all just seen
so it would then be real, even as we hoped it was not.
The anchor struggled to announce:
What had resembled an explosion had been and explosion.
The instant replays told us and re-told us
and still we disbelieved, disoriented and aghast, waiting
for the next announcement to tell us
the truth had been a lie, even as we saw bits
of the exploded capsule and its contents
crashing into the ocean.
I was shot into space that day like so many others; and like this
entirely preventable disaster, we all exploded into a million particles,
laughing at myths cherished by the foolish,
crying our disgust at the lazy, the arrogant and criminally negligent;
we thought of the traumatized children in the bleachers
who had come to watch Icarus fly-
who had come to watch their teacher die-
who had come to witness the catastrophic metaphor
of vanquished hubris and unmitigated horror,
with their newly and forever incised PTSD,
and just-discovered agnosticism.
This waste, this loss of blood and treasure,
tragic beyond math or measure,
a misguided presumption of engineering defying chaos,
the augured success with the possibility of failure
willfully ignored, mocked by spectacle and apotheosis,
by scattered debris, and by two tiny rubber O-rings.
Now nearly forty years have come and gone,
and I'm still waiting for the dust to settle.
It never has. It never will.