Walking through the science museum
in Kensington, you stop once more in
front of the stack of wrought iron and
intricately machined cogs and gears of
Mr. Babbage’s computing engine and
wonder what he would
think of this modern world of vacuum tubes
and television.
Often, as you’d wander down the marble halls,
you’d look upon the spruce and fabric
bird hanging from wires in
the ceiling
marveling at that slightly
moldering relic.
You could just smell in its musty odor
far away North Carolina sand dunes
and bicycle parts oiled up in Dayton, Ohio.
You would push back your tortoiseshell glasses
and run long fingers through what remained
of your hair
and walk outside into dazzling sunshine.
Suddenly, you’re in present day 1969.
Florida seas lash out somewhere
and standing stark ahead in the middle distance
Apollo 11 is roaring it’s blood-orange flames
from lion’s mouths agape.
The thundering climax of sound
washes over you and seems to
dislodge your heart from
its rib-cage shell
and the tears in your eyes,
the first you’ve cried in twenty years,
pool up to float you on an ocean of
relentless emotion
which you sail – totally beholden
just as the rocket sets right it’s course
to sail to the silver moon.
The Numinous Cosmos 