Daedalus to Icarus

Icarus
Icarus by FlamingPrints

Daedalus to Icarus

Listen, son, you take these wings,
And fly !  You fly, because you can !
You fly for all your strength is worth,
Until all lands are in your span.
And you see all that I can’t see,
And never mind what gods may say –
You fly on up, towards the sun,
And maybe touch his face some day…
You fly, and you become a god !
For gods are made by what they know –
So you learn what the gods won’t say
And you take what the gods won’t show.
Just like Prometheus before,
And just like Newton yet to come,
You are the god the gods most fear
Who spreads the word and bangs the drum.
They claim the sun will melt your wings –
They scoff, until your dreams are heard
By star-struck brothers on a beach,
And giant leaps beyond the birds.
There’s many let their dread of hubris
Quench the spark that’s just begun –
But others leap with open wings
And dare to fly – so fly, my son !

Skywriting

fisher pen
The Fisher Space Pen

Skywriting

Infact, they both used pencils
Up until Nineteen Sixty-Seven,
When a privately-researched pen was announced
And NASA and Cosmonauts quickly renounced
Those flammable, lead-shedding pencils –
Americans first, with Apollo 7.
They should be so proud, that commie space-guys
Are writing with Yankee-most free-enterprise.

A Pile of Babbage

Difference Engine
The Difference Engine at the Science Museum

A Pile of Babbage

You built a Diff’rence Engine
Just to see if it would work,
Then locked it in a cabinet
And let it snooze and shirk.
In all of its magnificence,
It’s still in cog and joint.
You say it makes no difference –
I say, that’s just my point !