Thomas Merton
In comment: This poem is only a partial and ambivalent statement. It is generated by tensions and perplexities which call, perhaps, for mention, for they express themselves in a general air of disillusionment. But I am not disillusioned with the idea of space exploration as such. On the contrary, this fantastic endeavor seems to me, in spite of various abuses, to be, in the classical sense of the word, “magnificent.” It is a noble, incomparably lavish expression of man’s intelligence and his courage.
I do not regard the exploration of space in itself as a Promethean impiety: quite the contrary. It is something which man should do because he is the son of God and the master of God’s creation. And if the space man is in all truth a sample of what the man of the future might turn out to be, then I think I like him. I find him admirable. By his patience, his humility, his courageous and simple ability to co-operate in infinitely tiresome programs, he is worthy to inherit the earth. Provided he does not forget there are other and deeper explorations to which he is called, with or without the encouragement of his society.
However, that is not what the poem is about. It has really nothing to do with the flesh-and-blood space men who have made the headlines, but about the headlines themselves. It is about the image, the fabricated illusion, the public and international daydream of space and space men. This is less magnificent. It is pitiably shallow, bedeviled with ambiguities and nonsense, a front for great crass power plays and Cold-War chicanery.
The poem is in a minor key because it takes account of this less charming aspect of the second most enormous and second most wasteful of our great international games. The best thing about this game, however, is that it does not threaten our survival. This, at least, can be said in its favor.
Brooding and seated at the summit Of a well-engineered explosion He prepared his thoughts for fireflies and warnings Only a tourist only a shy American Flung into public sky by an ingenious weapon Prepared for every legend His space once visited by apes and Russians No longer perfectly pure Still proffered virginal joys and free rides In his barrel of fun A starspangled somersault A sky-high Mother’s Day Four times that day his sun would set Upon the casual rider Streaking past the stars At seventeen thousand miles per hour Our winning Rover delighted To remain hung up in cool hours and long trips Smiling and riding in eternal transports Even where a dog died in a globe And still comes round enclosed In a heaven of Russian wires Uncle stayed alive Gone in a globe of light Ripping around the pretty world of girls and sights “It will be fun,” he thinks “If by my cunning flight The ignorant and Africans become convinced” Convinced of what? Nobody knows And Major is far out Four days ahead of his own news Until at last the shy American smiles Colliding once again with air fire and lenses To stand on noisy earth And engineer consent Consent to what? Nobody knows What engine next will dig a moon What costly uncles stand on Mars What next device will fill the air with burning dollars Or else lay out the low down number of some Day What day? May we consent? Consent to what? Nobody knows, Yet the computers are convinced Fed full of numbers by the True Believers
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