ORBITAL
-   an open letter to space travel.
(click on the "part" titles to go to the full sections)
title page
  the ORBITAL POETRY ENGINE
ORBITAL 
 

In the sky

find a name
place/location/frame
for stars to shine
through the kitchen window...

part two 

Before we travel
Into the dark outside
To be unwrapped
In a dark night, complete,
Contained in space.

part 3

So dynamic are the forces
Replacing
Your journey

Consulting
The once mother earth,

Imagine them.

part 4

Just
You,
Some suspending
Fear,

You are
Secretly paying homage to birth.

part 5

The world:
What distance?
Therefore

What myths
In older times?

part 6

Intelligence,
Once perhaps 
All

Now, tracing a path
Or
Does the sun block out the stars?

part 7

Virtually
All air
Which might
Manifest
Exchange
=
Some rear view
Sight,
Or hands
Electronic.

part 8

Sound echoes
The sirens
In you
Paradoxically,

What impels
Through you
Eyes first?

part 9

Spare
Here
What 
You can.

The decorum
And the vast array,

Each, like
This mote in god's eyes
Called Gaia.

part 10

The world
And
Any saintly halo
Breeds every faith.

Imagine imagination
Without them.

part 11

Will gods hold their shape
-though older-
to float
or ask why?

part 12

The eyes
Imbedded in 
The universe,

Canvas black.

Did you watch
One never named?

The story
The errors
In the darkness

Sleep and fly
As we all do.

part 13

Some rocket connected
dream:
The mist...

Do ripples,
do you
the constellations
slightly change?

By what can you measure
speed,
or waves?

part 14

Could I tick
By what measures
Journeys end,

which one day
I stop?

...here nor there...
mac dunlop