Blue Origin’s Astro-Tourism
Flight Set to Launch Again. . .
Various media headlines,
Russia, Ukraine, Palestine, Israel—
all at war, emphasizing the obvious:
we are a species that can’t stop
misbehaving here on Earth.
So what the heck are we doing
flying for fun into space?
I realize extraordinary wealth
can buy escape from our world
for a precious ten minutes
as cross-continent traveling,
cruise ships, and nuclear
threats get boring after a while.
But the media this morning
is full of images of the launch,
the New Shepard rocket
carrying dilettante astronauts
beyond the sky—while ground
missiles destroy ordinary lives.
Yvette Schnoeker-Shorb
Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb is the author of the chapbook, Shapes That Stay (Kelsay Books, 2021). Her poetry has appeared in the New York Quarterly, The Midwest Quarterly, About Place Journal, AJN: The American Journal of Nursing, Slipstream Magazine, Plainsongs, and elsewhere. She has served in various capacities as an educator, a researcher, and an editor and is cofounder of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Native West Press.