The launching of the final American space shuttle, Atlantis, this morning has held our attention here at Atticus Books all week long. First with our otherworldly issue of Atticus Review, and now with a poem from our publisher, we’re commemorating this momentous end of an era. While the final launch and closing of the book on mankind’s space travel (at least for now) means many things to many people, it certainly is something to make us pause, think, and wonder. And we invite you to join us.

Inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Every Grain of Sand”
 

In the sign of autumn’s awakening

In the plane of the Milky Way

Near a star not alive, unlike the Sun

Plus a thousand light years away.

In a place with no beachfront property

In a mass like the Earth times three

Out there somewhere in the far galaxy

Our system’s holy grail to be.

In the labs of deep-sky technology

In the minds of the scientists

By radio dish, ideology

Safer planets than ours exist.

In the slums of the Bowery’s ghettos

In the layers of blood and spit

With microscope focused and slides exposed

Mankind’s findings find peace unfit.

In the time of this nation’s recession

In the hour of its deepest need

Dying voices croak in the oppression

As warfare spreads rampant like weed.

In the wasteland of street crime poverty

In the tar traps of Pothill Bend Road

A “For Sale” sign greets the calamity

On crab grass that needs to be mowed.

 
(1992)

Photo Source: The Tech Herald
Photo Credit: NASA