Seven Astronauts


February 2, 2003

I wrote this the day after the space shuttle Columbia exploded. I still remember the Challenger exploding in 1986, almost exactly 17 years before the demise of the Columbia. Both explosions were very traumatic for the whole nation and the world, and I will forever remember where I was when I found out about both of them, even though I was only in second grade in 1986.

Seven children once gazed up at the stars
And wondered what it was like up there.
Over Israel, India and the United States,
The skies looked down on them
Seeming to call to them

Seven children grew up
Dreaming of what they would do
They became pilots, doctors, scientists, colonels

They watched in horror
As the Challenger blew up
Shortly after takeoff
Not knowing that they would one day
Suffer a similar fate

Seven men and women were accepted by NASA
To explore the heavens
To conduct scientific experiments

Seven families and three nations
Watched in awe as the spaceship lifted off
They dreamed of their fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters
Up there in the skies
Houston got reports of their findings
Scientific knowledge advanced
Until the communication stopped

Seven families waited at Cape Canaveral’s landing strip
Eagerly awaiting their loved ones’ return
They did not expect their joy to turn to tears
They did not expect to hear news of the Columbia
Exploding over Texas
Scattering all over the largest continental state in the US

Seven men and women were lost that day
Seven families learned that their loved ones
Would not be returning
Seven families suffered the same pain
As seven other families
Seventeen years earlier
Three nations lost their sons and daughters
The first Israeli and the first Indian in space

Lost.

Why did this happen?
How?
Praise the Lord
He can do wondrous things
He can work through tragedies
Who knows?
Perhaps this was the tragedy
That will cause many lost souls
To consider where they will go
Maybe people will be saved for eternity
Because God used an exploded space shuttle
And seven lost lives
To bring them to Him

May God have all the glory!

All poetry © Steven Sauke. All Rights Reserved.