Boom Boom Rocketship

After I am done writing this poem I will put it in an envelope and seal it.

Then I will go to everyone I know and ask them to write a poem and put it in an envelope and seal it.

Then I will ask my friend who studies rockets to design a capsule that will be launched from Earth

and return in 40 years.

Then we will all take our poem-filled envelopes and seal them in the spherical rocket.

My friends will write poems about me, poems about themselves,

themselves as children; about the book they just finished.

My friend who designed the rocket will probably write a poem about science.

We will go to a field and light the fuse and the rocket will speed away in a moment.

It will fade to a dot in the blank blue sky

and then it will disappear behind a cloud that looks like a dragon.

We will all then attend to the busy errand of growing older.

We will acquire houses; we will lose family members to age greater than ours

we will learn historical dates, then forget them.

Then we will learn the dates again, but forget that they were ever forgotten.

The silver orb will tumble silently through an empty starscape.

It will circle a distant but furiously burning sun

that will also rise from our horizon every morning.

After enough of that, it will be the moment to return to the field.

We will stand more trim and well-dressed than before

and most of us won’t recognize each other.

Then a boom from above will announce our returned vessel.

It will scream across the sky and arc

before the sun

before tearing a crater through the dirt.

It will land about three feet from where we thought it would.

It will look exactly the same, preserved by the nothing of space.

Everyone will unceremoniously rip open their long-locked envelopes

and a cloud will drift in front of the sun.

My friend who built the rocket, having become a science teacher,

will remember when he loved science and didn’t care about discipline.

People will read their poems about me and quickly look up to see if I am still there.

I will read this poem and remember the furiously burning passion of my rocket poem project,

passion which cooled to embers and then ash and then blew away.

The sun will come out again and we will recognize each other

but we still won’t remember each other.

The sun will burn off our memories like fog from the field.

Parts of Speech

“If you could change any word into another, which would it be and what would you change it to?”

"It is funny you should say that, it relates to something I was thinking about as you were talking. Three words keep repeating themselves in my head: would, could, should. After a firm attempt to ignore the loop I've decided to resolve the issue, which is a form of silencing. I'm not the first to observe, as I'm sure you are well aware, that the words 'could', 'would', and 'should', rhyme and work as similar tools and, therefore, must be connected. And I have tried often to connect them. I have tried to construct a well-built theory and fit the idea of the words inside. But, I'm afraid, it is rather like shoving a man much larger than myself in through a window. The trick is, and one day I will discover its secret, to convince the idea, through kind words, to go around and walk in the front door of the theory; as any man of grace should, as I'm sure God intended."

"You are trying to say too much at once. It’s difficult to understand, and what’s more, I think you might be insane.”

"Aha! I cannot disagree but only ask what caused you to say so."

"Well, it’s difficult to express. It isn't that you are saying something senseless, for if you were then I would know you as a fool and not a loon. Rather it is that what you say makes its own sense. Your sense is not like any I have ever known, which makes me wonder why I recognize it so familiarly. You are intelligent but do not reason in the same way I often do, so you must be insane."

"I have always suspected this of being true and I see that you are like me, not allowing the evil of connotations to bend the tracks on your train of thought. It seems, as you say, that I am often to be found on a path that only exists behind me and leads me only where I am going, for I am the first to walk it. But often the trouble comes when I arrive and the crowd asks me how I got there, at which point it is indescribable."

"This is why you cannot be understood. Do you always speak in elaborate metaphors?"

"I must. Ideas are like bars of gold in that they are totally worthless. The values of gold and ideas are inherent and reliant on nothing. However, one cannot buy their daily bread with bars of gold because the grocer will scorn you for attempting to swindle him. In order to get anything done, one must have a bill in hand that is, itself, totally worthless but represents the wealth of a gold bar. So metaphors, though they only represent the true golden wealth of an idea, are necessary if we are ever to make an efficient exchange."

"So should we all speak in metaphor, according to you?"

"Your question is meaningless, because we couldn't do anything else if we tried. The better question would be, in my far from humble opinion: if you could speak without the bills and only trade gold, would you even want to?"

"Does preference enter the equation?"

"It must, otherwise the whole situation is moot. Because if we only concentrate on what would be best for us, then we are only concentrating on the word 'should'."

"The implications of that word should seem heavier than ‘would’ or ‘could’."

"The word itself is only representation, so do not give it too much weight. But remember how it sits beside its brothers: what should you do? what would you do? what could you do? Do you understand how it all, sooner or later, becomes the same thing?"

"But if it is the same thing, then there couldn't be any such thing as gold."

"You shouldn't say that, it limits where you could go next."