I.        in the valley of rockets
          
        orange broken minds love
    nightmare of catwalks and girders

        rivets the size of a hand

        sears-roebuck orange
    cats-cradles of welded steel            

        cracked concrete pads

                bird of paradise orange
    ribboned with fuel lines and wire

        rails and rotten wooden ties

                heart of fire orange
    snakes and ladders rusting


ii    freedom nose first
                no body to embalm


iii    reached for the moon
    with old gods
    Mercury    Saturn        Apollo

    older gods and stone temples 
    stand firmer

    when rockets shake the earth        
    and observers roar over
    firing thrusters


iv    anointed with silence


v    where have you gone, bright ghosts–  

        towed off to become the Hummingbird Reef
            where sports fishermen dangle their poles
    
        hauled off to inventor Charles Bell’s yard
            to be auctioned off as scrap metal after his death

        packed away in a warehouse to wait for a museum 
            tall enough to reach stars beyond our galaxy


Artistry of Space, the NASA Art Program (Artrain USA) 
Richmond, California Stop
    Support, James Browning Wyeth
    The Start, George Weymouth
    From the Inside, Robert Shore