An Object at Rest
Aug 30 2016


My rocket wobbles
on its column of flame.
The ground shakes
the booster strains.
The sound 
makes each cell of my brain
reverberate
within its craggy skull.

At first, it seems to hover
before gaining speed.
Then, the majestic ascent
of its impossible bulk,
gleaming in a clear blue sky.

It consumes nearly all of its fuel
in just lifting-off,
the bonds of earth
inertia
sloth
so unbreakable.
And whatever immoveable thing
you think is blocking you.
Hoping 
for that once-in-motion
effortless glide,
as constant as an object at rest.

I know now 
why Cape Canaveral 
began counting down.
Because zero stops you cold, 
no putting off
until another day, a better place
you’re feeling more disposed.
While I insist on counting up,
and could just as well go on and on
until the universe 
turned dark and still.

I feel like I’m perched 
atop a powerful bomb,
a Saturn rocket
my tiny pod.
Waiting ...waiting
for that fateful shot.

Strapped-in, looking up at the sky
I’m a passenger
on my very own flight.
Riding a vat 
of hair-trigger fuel,
a speck of spare baggage
a passive fool.

Failure to launch
and getting old.

Or my own Hiroshima
about to blow.



I read something about how a rocket consumes nearly all of its fuel in just getting off the ground. So there are numerous theoretical ways to get an object into orbit a lot more cheaply (and in a more environmentally responsible way, as well!):  things like balloon launches; or catapults (so it’s not carrying the weight of its own fuel); or winged flight up as far as the stratosphere. There is even the hypothetical space ladder:  like a giant rope or skyhook, tethered above in geo-stationary orbit. 

But what came to mind when I read this was procrastination:  that is, how hard it can be to get started, to get off the ground in the first place.

I have to confess, I often feel I’ve lived my life this way.  Too passively. As a spectator. Immobilized by  too much “magical thinking”. That is, waiting for something to happen ...some kind of synchronicity ...something to be given. Ahhh, yes; a mode of thinking where “all in the fullness of time” is too easy a consolation. I suppose you could call it the “deus ex machina” world-view.

Even though we take it for granted, it was not a given that, at the beginning of the “space age”,  NASA would launch rockets by counting down. In fact, the countdown was probably counter-intuitive. But for some reason, they chose it, and now it seems self-evident. And I suppose it is:  ending at zero stops you cold, leaving nowhere to go but up! 

Anyway, the critical line in the poem is probably failure to launch. Which has become a bit of a cliche in describing the so-called Millenials who can’t find good full-time jobs, are frustrated getting into their chosen profession, and still live at home with their aging parents. I hardly fit that cohort; but I think the expression is still appropriate. And the final  stanza describes the frustration that can accompany this:  the narrator, sitting atop that volatile mountain of liquid fuel boiling away beneath him. (I should note that the final lines only work if you pronounce Hiroshima as I do:  where the “o” takes the emphasis; and sounds as it does in “off”, not “old”.)