(note: this, again, is from anthony's site; I didn't write this. andy hasn't even been to space yet.)


Afternoon On A Hill
25 Apr 2006
My uncle was the official chef for the Salyut III Space Station launched in 1973 by the Russians. He said it was an easy job, great pay, and there were enough health benefits to make a cosmonaut blush. He resigned due to what he called "the pace of the paste" and told me, "In Earth's orbit, it takes so much more time to die. You start to see yourself living through centuries, and if life is anything, it's to buy the farm with your contemporaries, when prices are low."
He lives in Florida now, near Cape Canaveral. I visited him a few months ago so we could make a day of seeing a space shuttle launch. The launch and the mission were canceled and we were left at the bleachers outside the launch pad. My uncle shook his head, cursed at NASA, and then told me about his fondest outer space memory:"There was one night when my two comrades had fallen asleep. I didn't get much sleep in orbit. I was talking to the night watchman of USSR Ground Control and he was telling me about his girlfriend whom he planned to marry. He said he wanted to marry her in orbit. He wanted to be a part of the first civil union in outer space. And he told me all the details—how the ring would be a moon rock and how to consummate the vows in zero gravity. And all of a sudden I lost him. Communications failed and for twenty minutes the Salyut III Space Station was silent. I didn't know what on Earth was happening on Earth and I enjoyed it."
Today's poem is for my uncle. It isn't about outer space but it can be.





AFTERNOON ON A HILL

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will be the gladdest thing
.....Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
.....And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
.....With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass
.....And the grass rise.

And when the lights begin to show
.....Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
.....And then start down!

ash @ 9:58 AM