How Will We Know When We Have Reached The Sun Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

HOW WILL WE KNOW WHEN WE HAVE REACHED THE SUN

[in memory of the Challenger disaster]

how will we know when we have reached the sun?
Icarus never said who flew with cloud and wind
and solitary as the rains.

be glad, he told his children, for the flights
of iridescent wings inside your head
and for the wounded shadows leaking light.

and then he left his midnights on the workshop floor
and rose and rose when none were looking up...

into the seas of no regret he sped
as they were waking-
and splashed into a brighter world than this

and where he felt his mother's kiss, again
and all the dreaming of the:
before this ever happened.

how could they know that, as he did,
from that time on,
long Ages would miss him

while his legend soared

mary angela douglas 28 july 2015 rev.10 june 2017