Robert Ronnow
                                                                                              The Imaginary i



                             Mission STS-51-L


The New Hampshire high school teacher
who died yesterday in the space shuttle Challenger
articulated her enthusiasm
uncritical of America’s evasions and invasions
and devoted her life to her students
accepting perhaps too certainly the future in the firmament.

Her most interesting comment was the similarity she saw
in the teamwork at NASA and the classroom dynamic.
It is a neat parallel as noted by the president
that Sir Francis Drake also died on January 28th
390 years ago. Then, the ocean was the frontier. Now, as before,
the communal imagination gives birth
to new machines, minds and intent
whatever it takes to explore the world.


Copyright 2023 by Robert Ronnow.