From that spinning capsule Gagarin jumped,
It twisted under his feet, tumbled away.
He knew just how far to trust technology,
Enough to get him there and nearly back.
There can be no return to some past state of grace.
Gagarin would realise this as he fought the controls,
Willing his jet to wing over the town.
Too low, too late to eject,
Locked on death’s trajectory.
A poem from Paul Tobin c.1980
One Response to Gagarin Jumped
Paul Tobin
I remembered a poem I read years ago in an anthology- Frontier of Going edited by John Fairfax in 1969, published by Panther, I have the 1973 reprint.
George Barker
In Memory of Yuri Gagarin
“-at the death of
this small man the
stars threw down
a hand-
ful of dark years
and the moon with-
drew into her ro-
tating cave of shadows and
wept a little. The
Dog Star hid
its head
and the Leonids like
mice ran squeking
over the Zodiac. The
globe eyed ghosts of
our house of planets crept
out from cold lairs and
huddled together as
the ash of the dog that
died in the sky fled
to follow its
master this dead man
free in free
fall at last”
And Death
said “I take
him to me so
that no dishonour
can now or ever
accrue upon
this man or this name:
Yuri Gagarin”
I think that it illustrates just how universal the admiration and respect for Yuri were.