apollo 13

Here is the thing, and the whole of the thing:

Months before a crane dropped gravity, and then
within this little metal sphere
heat baked beyond proportion, took away

a little plastic, that enthralled a world:

days out from earth, in mariners’ unmeasured night, earth-shadow, hundred-thousand miles from home,

one spark meant mostly death, on any mindful bettor’s slate.

“We’ve had a problem,” and four words
brought an entire generation to its books,
slide-rules and vacuum tubes and duct tape and crossed fingers
and brains pushed together till escapes were found.

Splashdown from prayers’ arc, and TV tropes:

here’s where the grizzled heroes in their sweat-stained garb come from,
three men who by all rights should be frozen, breathless, dead,
hearts beating, smiling for the crowd, teeth glinting: ting.

Hellfire in a confined space
had eaten their precursors, and perhaps
had Russian Secrecy lifted its skirts and told a tale
it might have spared them, but: here is the deal,
they’re heroes. And perhaps these slide rules made it up:

three lives for deaths, a worldwide smile, hands clasped.

For once and only once a whole globe listened,

watched,

mouthed invocations, held hands, wanted, cared,
and technicolor splashdown meant the world
had done it, done the right sums, brought them home.

For once that home

meant earthrise, from the soft grey-dusted moon,
Blue Marble, earthshine, pale blue dot, our world.

The men whose slide-rules saved those lives are dead.
No one remembers
whose hands made the models, did the calculations, reappraised
when every cold equation equaled death. No one recalls
just how it was when one whole globe cried in affirmative,
dozens of languages, no words at all required,
they brought them home.

Today we do not bother to recall their names.

What will it take to hold this world
enraptured? Can it still be done?
Perhaps Mars landings, or Karellen’s voice,
a monolith, a tripod?

There will come soft rains, said the dying house.

Prepare for loss of signal.