IN THE SPACE FLIGHT ERA

Let’s try to create a living space
between the Earth and the Sky,
like a passage to infinity,
driven by the ship of our souls
entering into a cosmic resonance.
(Valentin Grigore)

We’ll leave Gaia.
We’ll penetrate with the Prometheic Fire
through spaces…
(Ruxandra Paunescu)

The texts above (the first one being written by the president of the
Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy-SARM) represented
the mottos of a Romanian special initiative on astronautic poetry.
Thus, in the autumn of 1999, Bucharest (Capital of Romania) hosted an
international congress of the cosmonauts.
So I decided (helped by Ioan N. Radu - teacher in mathematics and physics,
former world champion and record holder in model rocketry,
founder in 1968 of the "Astronautica" school society and magazine,
author of dictionaries of astronautics and researcher in astronautic history)
to make for this event an English mini-anthology (in the form of a folder),
Romanian Contemporary Astronautic Poetry, for which we selected
21 poems by 16 authors from the Astronautica magazine collection,
the Anticipatia almanac series (initiated in 1983)
and especially the SARM astropoetry movement.
This mini-anthology (in my English translation) was given to the cosmonauts
as an Astronautica & SARM supplement.

Some of its verses infers the evolution of human expeditions
among literary reverse reckonings:

Christopher Columbus jumped an ocean…
We learned to caress the hair
of the dark side of the Moon…
New Vikings sailed towards a planet
with a red beard…
(Valentin Ciocsan)

Other verses are closer to astronomy:

Each motor is a joke.
We have the Great Chariot and the Little Chariot -
the oldest vehicles
with wheels.
(Dan Mitrut)

And other verses blend astronautic history with old beliefs:

A superstition says the Moon hides
the blind souls of fools and dead persons.
They could seem like some leaves
fallen from grey trees.
When Armstrong was passing there,
he was crushing the drying, theoretical leaves
under his soles,
and the fools and dead persons
were dying one more time.
(Lucian Merisca)

There are verses introspecting an astronaut’s mind:

If I enter onto the never-ending way,
I’m afraid only of the same curse:
Time and Space, two savage snakes,
could coil me, strangling me,
and I’ll find my end
munched by forgetfulness,
and forced to materialize myself
into the infinite…
(Victor Chifelea)

Or verses remarking the facilities of a performable space ship:

Trust me, I have experience!
Nothing more pleasant than a trip
towards the galaxies of Scorpio!
Bulbs and buttons of the board have
nice colors,
signals are melodious,
and the cybernetic women contain
eternal fidelity.
(Ovidiu Raureanu)

Or verses imagining a very advanced space machine:

There was a space robot having
the speed of thought included
in its circuits.
There was no cosmic trap as fast
as for catching it.
Only sometimes it suffered
a passing desertion:
the average speed of the thoughts
of its native planet
was too slow
for its own personality
in development.
(Andrei Dorian Gheorghe)

And also surprising mythological connections like this:

“Professor,
I was walking on the wings of Icar
through the immensity
of a galactic nebula.
I thought I am a meteoroid in fin,
or a comet out of control.
Somebody told me that I seem
like even legendary Prometheus
bent by the burden
of a whole constellation!”
“My dear, Pandora’s box is not the same!
Now the dreams have appeared!” -
said the Professor with a slow voice, raising
on the wings of Icar.
(Lucian Boboc)

Or like this:

I had a dream:
using the old flood,
I extinguished the universal fire.
Noah’s ark was carrying giant stars
which I deluded to remain with me.
A black dwarf started in advance -
it seemed like the temerary dove!
Scared planets were also carried by Noah’s ark,
Leonids and Perseids were taking care of them.
I would have liked to see all
in Noah’s ark,
but the aliens were so angry,
that they banished me from the Bible.
(Diana Maria Ogescu)

And the conclusion below:

If the earthlings carry a cosmic nostalgia,
the starry obsession in their blood pulsation,
it is clear, we descend from stars,
and all our endeavors and efforts
are a wish of coming home.
Sail away, temerary men
of space ship and cosmopoetry,
your love climbing you into the sky
will conquer the Universe.
(Dominic Diamant)