POETRY & REALITY?: For Bob

Strange,
for all the times
you watched the sky
cut by the flame of
engines
driving rockets
into space;

Worried,
since you had a hand
in it, and the men
who sat within
depended on you
to make
them fly,

Strange,
and sad, we watch
the sky cut by the ghost
of your ascension,
without the smoke
of rockets
you rise.

R.I.P