Dad handed me the binoculars.
I stared into the Florida sky.
In the distance the big Saturn V
was a splinter atop an inch-long, orange flame.
Five days later we watched
humanity’s thousand-year dream come true
on a black and white TV.
A man had stepped on another world.
There was no end to the possibilities –
moon bases, footsteps on Mars,
travel to the edge of the solar system
but the fickle public grew bored
voted with their pocket books for coffee,
cigarettes, and liquor instead.
Once we raised our eyes to the stars.
Today we look at our shoes.
Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published over two hundred fifty poems in journals such as The New Verse News, Pearl, Pudding, and Slipstream. He has also published over fifty short stories. Jon has a Ph.D. in physics and is a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest. Jon was fortunate enough to see the Apollo 11 liftoff in 1969.
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