Laika's Breath

The Sacrifice of Laika’s Breath

By Roy D. Follendore III

Oh how ironic of mankind

to choose the perfect creature of the pack

whose very existence is based on unity,

to abandon in an infinite silence of empty violence.

She was “only” considered as a “stray”

selected by “Science” to be

abandoned by humanity

“modern” man’s sacrifice to the emptiness of space.

Fed like the pet she would never be

and carefully made content so that

she trusted her stewards to launch her

on her fiery one way journey.

I am sure that they petted her once more

and she licked their hand before they closed that door,

before they launched her into eternity

chained to darkness so she could not move nor see.

And oh how she must have screamed

when that great weight pressed flat her head and feet,

only to be betrayed by man once more

by relentless weightlessness, thick air and heat.

In due course her longing to be free gave way

the signals mercifully ebbed her painful sores.

not because of the compassion of man.

for they would have had much more.

And they say that her silver coffin

circled the Earth 2570 times, and not more,

to be burned up in our atmosphere

sometime in 1958 on April 4.

It was only then that Laika

was transformed by our air

which humanity now breathes.

After all, that is only fair.

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