April 3: Along The High Frontier

 

 

Along the High Frontier

by Tom King

I have never slipped the surly bonds of Earth
   Save firmly strapped in a seat in a big aluminum tube
Rocking along at 25,000 feet, someone else at the stick,
   Who knows how to fly this thing at preposterous speeds.
And ridiculous altitudes, but not in any danger of reaching space,
   Though if you can afford a ticket, perhaps...........

The high frontier for now is the province,
   Of very rich guys and scientists and celebrities.
Someday perhaps before the world blasts itself to atoms,
   A regular schlub like me might catch a ride
Beyond the stratosphere to where space proper has its boundaries.
   And I'd need a special suit to step out on the station's porch.

The High Frontier someday will open out before us,
   When we have had the time, the millenia to to figure out the tech.
Once the work of Earth has been completed and we humans
   Scrubbed of our sins and able to be turned loose out there
In the galaxy, without the fear that we will mess things up,
   There is so much we have yet to learn along the high frontier.

© 2022