Trajectory - Jan 25 2023

 

Trajectory

Jan 25 2023

It was a routine enough start,

countdown, ignition, launch.

But the trajectory must have been off

by just a fraction;

a misplaced decimal

or faulty conversion,

a number forgotten

keystroke dropped.

So the further on we went

the divergence kept on widening;

not just the wrong destination

but destination unknown.

To lose one's trajectory.

To be stalled

off course

lost,

not sure where you're going

or even sure where you've been.

I've been feeling that way for awhile;

not where I expected to be,

no sense

of anything meaningful ahead.

I think of of the rocket

that blasted off for Mars

but somehow missed,

just a little too far

from its gravitational pull

to slip seamlessly into orbit.

And now it's hurtling through space

and by the outer planets

into the vast unknown.

Where it will travel forever,

the dead men on board

preserved in its cold airless capsule.

I wonder how it felt

gazing out the small quartz-glass windows

as the red planet

sailed past,

their last chance

at solid ground

and certainty of purpose.

How did they sound

on the last message home

before the crackling transmitter failed?

What was said

in the last note

to the people they loved,

left for posterity

but never to be read?

And in the end

when all hope was lost

did they accept their awful fate?

Find peace?

At least resign themselves?

Or did they bargain

improvise

cling to life?

Rant and rave and rail

at its unfairness?

Fight to the death

even when no hope was left,

just a void

of cold black emptiness?