First in flight: a poetic reading of the Wright Brothers.

Earth is still our fate.
The uplifted sight
We enjoyed at night
When instead of sheep
We were counting stars,
Not to go to sleep,
But to stay awake
For good gracious’ sake,
Naming stars to boot
To avoid mistake,
Jupiter and Mars,
Just like Pullman cars,
‘Twas no vain pursuit.
Some have preached and taught
All there was to thought
Was to master Nature
By some nomenclature.
But if not a law
‘Twas an end foregone
Anything we saw
And thus fastened on
With an epithet
We would see to yet
We would want to touch
Not to mention clutch….

Keep on elevating.
But while meditating
What we can’t or can
Let’s keep starring man
In the royal role.
It will not be his
Ever to create
One least germ or coal.
Those two things we can’t.
But the comfort is
In the covenant
We may get control
If not of the whole
Of at least some part
Where not too immense,
So by craft or art
We can give the part
Wholeness in a sense.
The becoming fear
That becomes us best
Is lest habit-ridden
In the kitchen midden
Of our dump of earning
And our dump of learning
We come nowhere near
Getting thought expressed….

Nature’s never quite
Sure she hasn’t erred
In her vague design
Till on some fine night
We two come in flight
Like a king and queen
And by right divine,
Waving scepter-baton,
Undertake to tell her
What in being stellar
She’s supposed to mean.

Robert Frost, “Kitty Hawk“(excerpt), published 1962 in In the Clearing.

For another poem by Frost and his reading of it, see here and here.