Low Orbit Sky Daddy

Poetry by Joshua Ginsberg

Hush and come in close child,
Sit here in my lap and look out the windows
Up into the dark vaporous curtain of sky,
Too dense through which to see
The many distant stars beyond,
And search for that one point of light
Forever now tightly circling our world.

When you see it go twinkling past
Splitting the sky like a comet,
Hold your breath and make a wish.
That’s your father’s cargo shuttle,
The one in which he and his crew lost oxygen.
Yet even now, with rigid fingers
They maintain their low orbit
High above our planet.

Their cargo hold is filled with our dreams,
Which they deliver every day to the gates of the Afterland.
The head of the fifth sector wanted to shoot the craft down.
Did you know that? Do you remember?
But we, the families of the voyaging dead, objected.
Who but our loved ones, we asked, could we rely on
To bless us with their sightless gazes
Every thirty-two and a half hours?

Look, there it goes…
See the titanium alloy of the outer hull
Glitter like hope against the void?
That’s your father up there.
Make a wish.