Our Herald To The Stars Poem by Gordon R Menzies

Laika, my little love, the Barker
plucked from the frozen streets
of an ambitious Moscow
by the hairless apes who dream
of the unknown depths above
and cowardly given to the stars
in their stead, passed with fire
through cold November skies
to show us the way
and die alone in the darkness

You returned in the spring
showered the earth
with stardust and your ashes

Noses raised that April morn,
your earthbound littermates
caught your essence in the dawn
and howled together
of our shame