As Children Watch the Florida Sky: 38 Years Gone By

Tick-tick.
The countdown starts,
Dreams ignite in hopeful hearts.
Eyes so wide, they cannot stray,
The Florida sky calls them to stay.

Whoosh. Whoosh.,
A rocket’s flame,
A silver arrow carves its name.
Thirty-eight years, yet echoes ring,
Of seven souls who chased the spring.

Boom. Boom.
The morning cracked,
A plume of white, the silence stacked.
“What happened?” they cried, young voices shake,
As innocence crumbles with the break.

Tick-tick.
Years roll on,
The shadow of Challenger lingers long.
The children who watched that sky of frost,
Now teach their own of what was lost.

Whoosh.
They tell of courage, of daring flight,
Of men and women who pierced the night.
Their teacher, Christa, who led the way,
To show that learning could touch the ray.

Thirty-eight years, and still they stare,
At launches that climb on Florida’s air.
Thrum. Thrum.
The engines’ beat,
The steady march of human feat.

For every child who saw and cried,
Another rises, their dreams untied.
Boom.
Though skies may fracture, the stars remain,
Calling us upward through loss and pain.

Tick-tick.
The years move by,
But children still watch the Florida sky.
With awe, with hope, with hearts that climb,
Forever bound to Challenger’s time.