TIME TRAVEL AT THE CENTER OF SPACE

Travel to Canaveral, 
and Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge
for rockets and more.

Land turtles, creeping basketballs,
inch their way to the bush.
Gators in the summer heat
retreat to the woods.
Stop for a picture?
Snake bait.

I suggest, for
images to share,
explore
the Kennedy Space Center legacy.

A shuttle crawler, low, shuttered in its track
    recalllng
        slow steady steps into space
    awaits
        the last shuttle, now in stall
        anticipated payload in prep
        for one last space station haul
    and wonders.
        What’s next?

Apollo 8 on display,
its mission complete --
    sent a crew
    to orbit  the moon
    and return.
Experience it with the original cast
and control room technology --
IBM, NASA and Boeing.
The world, awed
at first-time views.

Kids, this is where it all began
on a clear day, December 21, 1968
Apollo 8 took a picture of the U. S. of A.
and your mom’s and my wedding in Lax, GA.

DRK
7/16/11

 

THE UNIVERSE IS EXPANDING

THE UNIVERSE IS EXPANDING

    Remembering Chicken Little

Are you struggling to remain small?

Or negotiate old distances?

Physicists have answered the call

There is a movement outward

 

Big Bang!

Have you noticed it? 

When I return to campus, as a retiree

I struggle to get from A to B

For thirty years I traversed this campus

Corner to corner, place to place

From office to classroom

And every imaginable meeting space

It never took this long

Students have always been challenged

To get from one end to the other

But, hats off, their generation is adapting

Through some evolutionary mechanism

Parking lots, our neighborhood

         Insert your own experience here

Everything takes more time

And energy to negotiate

When the universe expands

Everything does

Yonder, people must speak louder to communicate

And I do the same for them

Ladders extend higher

My girth and weight

But the future looks good

When I call upon the young 

They respond with such aplomb

Son, please take this stool 

That light bulb needs to be replaced

That one way up there

DRK

8/28/20

 

THE TROUBLE WITH GETTING OLD

 

Is that not everyone does

Someone is left

With what remains

 

In the brain

 

Unpreventable intrusions

Infusions?

 

Phantoms

Rummaging

Jostling for brain space

 

Is there still room in there?

 

Do these visitors occupy

Empty areas?

 

Or do they create

Maybe dignify

New spaces

That might have

Mouldered away?

 

That is the hope

Welcome, spooks

 

DRK

4/5/2025

 

 I-N-V-A-L-I-D

 

My retinue of roles

On their journey

Playing out the rules

    Let me get that door for you

    May I help you up that curb

        Young man

Young man?!

 

Life's logic urges

Move along

 

Were I to question that logic

One of us could be declared

As/an

 

I-N-V-A-L-I-D

 

DRK

1/16/25