As a child*, I listened in fear at the end of the Cold War.
Adults spoke defiantly, as each new threshold was reached in Space
by US or THEM.
Who are THEY, I wondered?
They are Soviets. My teachers taught me fear for many years.
I wondered, are the Soviet children
afraid of U.S.?
The Soviets were really Russians, and Germany was split in two.
How can a child understand why?
Then two miracles happened to heal Russia and Germany.
No more walls.
Competition turned to cooperation.
Thank you Yuri, Sergei and Valentina.
Thank you Neil, Buzz, John and Sally.
Being in Space brings national freedom.
For who, sitting in a Space Station, can look upon a blue globe and say,
“That is my country?”
“Those are its boundaries?”
The only earth seen from a Space Station is OUR earth.
OUR blue globe. We all live there.
Without boundaries to define and confine us
WE are world citizens. ONE earth.
When I now hear of Russian and American explorers
riding the Space Shuttle together,
I weep with joy. No more fear.
There is enough Space for everyone.
Cosmonauts, astronauts, spationauts and more,
are living together on a Space Station right now,
as they orbit the ONE, the only EARTH… together.
Karen Brockelbank
February 26, 2017
This award winning poem was published in NECC’s Parnassus magazine, 2017
* Karen Brockelbank was born in 1964
