High, Higher, Highest
Samuel Hazo
Viewed from space, the world’s
impersonal.
                     France appears,
but no Frenchmen.
                                          Then Germany,
without one German.
                                                    Regardless,
the richest man on earth
pays three hundred thousand
for a ten-minute flight by rocket
at three thousand miles per hour
to see everything below
from sixty-two miles straight up.
He’s making business plans
for space, beginning with Mars
and the moon.
                             There’s ample
precedent to show how profit
motivates.
                   After we mapped
the earth as we imagined it,
we matched what we imagined
with the world as it would look
when photographed from space.
We did the same with rivers,
lakes and seas.
                             We kept
the original names unchanged
for everything we saw
as far as we could fly.
From seashores to the stratosphere
the world was seen as property
that men could bargain for and buy.
We see it now the same
while profiteers debate how best
to advertise and sell the sky.