"Per Aspera Ad Astra" by Mary Soon Lee, Poet of the Week

Per Aspera Ad Astra

Mary Soon Lee

 

Every rocket rises

against weight.

Before Sputnik, before Vostok,

before the race to space,

Korolev's teeth fell out

in the mines of Kolyma

under Stalin's terror,

beaten, scurvy-ridden.

Before Gagarin orbited Earth,

before Voyager 1 glimpsed Saturn's rings,

concentration camp workers

carved caves to birth V-2s.

Corpses cremated.

A pit filled with ash.

The stars a fire.

Poet's Notes: "Per aspera ad astra" is a Latin phrase meaning "through hardships to the stars." I wrote this poem after reading the opening chapter of T. A. Heppenheimer's book, Countdown: A History of Space Flight. I love the space program, but there is plenty of grimness in its history, far more than the poem touches on, some of it merely (merely!) due to equipment/vehicle failures: Grissom, White and Chaffee who died during testing for the Apollo program. The Soyuz 11 crew. Challenger. Columbia.

Editor’s Note:  The state motto of Kansas is ad astra per aspera.