SHIP OF EARTH
This earthship, which we now sail on seas
of time and space, aware of other tides
and stars and winds than move about us here,
is smaller than we dreamed. Once, its high
mountain masts pierced infinity,
as we rode, bow into future, and past
at our stern, a vessel without peer
in the universe, the first, the last!
The sails gave way to engines, the spars to wings,
the continental coasts to cosmic shores,
and still we see no end to journeying.
Although our rocket shrinks, we keep our course.
We watch, we sleep, our dream a toylike thing
that wakes and wonders—-whose will, which force?