It is not, of course, a literal longing An actual yearning for some terra firma unlike our own (The vistas promised her elders In the pages of childrenβs science encyclopedias, Jetson-esque lunar traffic jams and hourly interplanetary shuttles Failing to materialize as prophesied, The future being a pastel, underwhelming version of our hopes) But things unrealized, ethereal but substantial, Their very lack of corporeality giving them a solidity, A genuineness that those subjects of everyday aspirations No longer possess, stripped of all semblance of magic, And she has made a rather discontented compact with all of that, Choosing to cast her lot with such that this plane has to offer, But her memories can be fanciful things, And not party to such contracts, And in her mind she is whisked away to the bus ride To see the cosmos projected on the school planetarium In the cow-town school up in Poplar Ridge, Her heart quickening as the darting stars And the great, ponderous Jupiter Waxed and waned on the buildingβs dome, Her fifth-grade group among the last to see such a show Before the gears in the works, Impractical and wildly expensive to replace Sheared and came to a halt for the final time.
The poem shares a title with an extraordinary song by Julia Haltigan, who is quite extraordinary her ownself