Space Is My Mistress
Posted on Apr 03, 2012 05:42:29 PM | Don Pettit | 10 Comments    |

Aurora over Earth

Seeing as how April is National Poetry Month….

Space is My Mistress

Space is my Mistress,
and she beckons my return.
Since our departure I think of you
and yearn to fly across the heavens arm in arm.
I marvel at your figure,
defined by the edges of continents.
You gaze at me with turquoise eyes,
perhaps mistaken for ocean atolls.
You tease me to fall into your bosom,
sculptured by tectonic rifts,
only to move away as if playing some tantalizing game.
Time and time we turn together,
through day, and night, and day,
repeating encounters every 90 minutes with a freshness,
as if we have never seen our faces before.
We stroll outside together,
enveloped by naked cosmos,
filled with desire to be one.
So close,
you sense my every breath,
which masks your stare through visor haze.
We dance on the swirls of cloud tops,
while skirting the islands of blue.
You know my heart beats fast for you.
Oh, Space is my mistress,
and when our orbits coincide,
we will once again make streaks of aurora across the sky.


Don's blog also appears at airspacemag.com.

Tags : astronauts, earth observation, exploration, international space station  

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10 Comments so far ( Post your own )
10 On Apr 25, 2012 01:23:32 PM  Christie  added a comment on your blog post. 

Thank you for sharing the photos, your lovely poetry, your thoughts and the science of it all. What a gift you've given us!

9 On May 15, 2012 05:55:28 PM  Eric  added a comment on your blog post. 

Don Pettit is my kind of guy!! No one else brings his kind of flair for storytelling into orbit! The man is a treasure!! :)

8 On Apr 11, 2012 11:20:01 AM  dryo  added a comment on your blog post. 

Don, you are unquestionably the poet laureate of space!! an absolutely lovely & moving poem -(... terrific b-day surprise for me). Thanks. t

7 On Apr 04, 2012 10:28:41 PM  Beth Webber  added a comment on your blog post. 

The poet soul of the engineer. Not a myth, but a reality.

6 On Apr 05, 2012 03:14:24 AM  Spider42  added a comment on your blog post. 

Very nice poem and that image is just magnificent! You guys have the best job on Earth! (or off Earth or... never mind...)

Any chance at all we could see a larger version of that picture? (the 5-year old within him asked eagerly...)

Cheers!

5 On Apr 03, 2012 08:20:38 PM  Judith Christian  added a comment on your blog post. 

Great poem! Thank you. I have written one inspired by Helix Nebula NGC 7293. Wish I could share it with you, but I don't want to post it here.

4 On Apr 04, 2012 02:06:34 AM  juvy (UK)  added a comment on your blog post. 

fascinating don.
regards.

3 On Apr 03, 2012 06:35:30 PM  Rob Fendler  added a comment on your blog post. 

Beautiful words, Don. They said they should send a poet to outer space. Well, it looks like they already have.

2 On Apr 03, 2012 06:38:08 PM  tariq jaser  added a comment on your blog post. 

very beautiful <3

1 On Apr 03, 2012 06:39:23 PM  guest  added a comment on your blog post. 

very very very very beautiful , greetings from the land of Arabia :)

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