Stepping off the ladder she’ll wonder
“What happened to the Sun?”
So much smaller than the one she shielded her eyes from
As she walked to the launch pad;
So much colder than the one which burned her pale skin
Running around the playground at school,
Or lounging by the pool on her honeymoon.
Icy cold at sunrise and sunset,
Silvery-gold at mid-day, hidden by half a fingernail.
But foolish and unfair to dismiss it
As just a pale imitation of the one which lit her life
From birth to blast-off. Wrong to scoff
At a star which once shone down on sparkling pools,
Rushing rivers and the surf-sudded shores of an ocean.
It once blazed in a Bierstadt-blue sky, and, perhaps,
Some simple forms of life felt its warmth
On their backs briefly before they died?
© Stuart Atkinson 2018
