A small step
A giant leap with
Chirps and tweeps
Tween Houston and there

Playing on the RCA
Console color TV
In the living room
When I was eleven

Something stirring
In my pre-adolescent soul
An ache; a yearning
Still with me now

Every launch since
Plumes of vapor and smoke
Lifting humans that
Challenge mortality

Every view of this blue mote
Seen from afar dazzles me
Earth rise from the moon
Dancing auroras from ISS

I could see the Milky Way there
Lucky rural boy I was
I can see the Milky Way here
Lucky rural man I am

I want us to go
I want us to know
I want us to yearn
To learn “Are we alone?”

A kid then, adult now
I want to remove my glasses
As Cronkite did then
When we set foot on Mars