All those 

missions

to the moon

soon

felt so 

ordinary.

Everything

else

was a moon

shot

as we forgot

rocket science

challenges

until

The Challenger

explosion.

No longer

cavalier,

the fear

drove

decisions

more than

ambitions,

and understandably

so.

The aptly

named 

Challenger,

famed

for spectacular

disaster

is plastered

in our psyche.

Since then 

it seems,

that doing

big things

like moon shots

have become

too hard.

But that’s 

a story 

(with all

it’s gory

glory)

that fuels

(sorry)

that narrative

of the incentive

of the genius

billionaire

who will 

save us.

They profess

government

fails us;

and billionares

are us

because

the tell us

they are.

Huh?

When  the vaccine

saved us

from COVID-19,

that was a

moon shot

that landed.

The increasing

access

to health,

wealth,

education,

and participation

of all sorts

is distorted

as some sort

of assault

on individual

freedom.

Meanwhile

actual 

assault

weapons

are holier

than thou.

Now,

fear 

is the sphere

in which

we all orbit,

and 

restoring

democracy

as it used

to be

feels like

a moon 

shot.

The Challenger

this election

is Biden,

despite

his current

position.

His world

was blown up

before 

our eyes

and the

surprise

is the

seeming

inability

to completely

clean it

up.

But we 

can still

do hard

things

beyond

challenging.

It feels

like a moon

shot

if you forgot

that we

got

to the moon

many times.

And The Challenger,

which

brought 

with it 

fear,

also made

clear

that rigor

and resumed

vigor

and a program

reconfigured,

meant 

it didn’t

have

to end 

in disaster.