Before This Decade Is Out Poem by Laurence Overmire

Sitting around the living room
We watched
When they landed on the moon
Little black and white TV
Hazy picture, garbled sound
Still, we couldn't believe
What we were seeing
The Eagle had landed
That one small step for man
One giant leap for—
Mankind, would we be any better
Could we be any worse
A world capable of destroying itself
In an instant, but still
The flag gleamed on the surface of that
White, cold rock
Somehow we had done it
A man on the moon
Something to be proud of
And we were.

~ Laurence Overmire

(Previously published in Honor and Remembrance: A Poetic Journey Through American History, Indelible Mark Publishing,2007)