"STAR WOMAN" ~ A Tribute Poem for Teacher and Astronaut, Christa McAuliffe

STAR WOMAN
(Christa McAuliffe ~ 1948-1986)

Fly me to the moon –
weightless and astonished.

I
am
history.

Teaching –
connecting worlds –
I wave through the window.

An ordinary life
made extraordinary by chance –
one letter out of eleven thousand.
Touching comets from my desk –
I see galaxies.

Ship of stars
edging closer to the sky.
Galactic plans,
explorer dreams –
lifting off,
then ending.
Seven memories –
still in flight.

Cristina M. R. Norcross
Copyright 2011

This week marked the 25-year anniversary of the crash of the space shuttle, Challenger. I wanted to honor the memory of the only teacher on that flight, Christa McAuliffe with this poem.

"Seven astronauts died Jan. 28, 1986, when Challenger was destroyed just after liftoff. It was NASA's first in-flight calamity, and it dealt an especially severe blow to the millions of teachers and students watching on TV to see Christa McAuliffe, a civilian high school teacher from New Hampshire, become NASA's first Teacher in Space." ~Clara Moskowitz (Full article here - http://www.space.com/10708-shuttle-challenger-anniversary-nasa-lessons.html)