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As Children Watch the Florida Sky: 38 Years Gone By

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You never forget these things, and you know exactly where you were standing and doing when they happened. I write a new poem every year because of how much this has impacted my life.

On January 28, 1986, the Challenger Space Shuttle was scheduled for its 10th mission, the 25th mission of the entire shuttle fleet. By this point, we had become comfortable with shuttle launches, but this one was special because it included a teacher from New Hampshire who would become the first civilian in space. Tragically, the shuttle exploded just 73 seconds into the mission. After a year of investigation, we finally know that, unfortunately, temperatures had dropped as low as 36°F (2.22°C), which caused an O-ring to fail. Christa McAuliffe, the teacher aboard, was making history, and many children across the United States were watching. This poem is written for them.

Listen to poem:

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.

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