In pj’s we pad over dewy grass
in the October chill
to mount the ’48 Plymouth
lying like a cold black boulder
under a studded nightvelvet sky
(me on the roof—on my back)
And we are early
so it’s like the drive-in movies
dark enough for the impatient horns
to start honking, only we’re not out here
for a comedy or cowboy flick
but something dark, something sci-fi
Something Flash Gordonish—
because nothing but the Aurora Borealis,
the random meteor, or the blinking beacon
of your occasional prop-driven airliner
ever moves up there
in our nightsky
And so we fidget
waiting on that corner of heaven
we’ve been warned to watch
whispering in hushed reverence
and consulting the big radium-dial
Dad keeps in his pocket
When suddenly:
There
it is! There! Right there! See it!?
The first untwinkling ‘star’
ever
swimming across the big dipper
plotting a geometrically-precise
Straight line and clocking
a faster transit of the firmament
than a four-engine TWA—
stunned with awe, we quietly mouth
the holy word…
Sputnik…
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