Poem: ‘Extravehicular Activity’

Science in meter and verse

Illustration of astronaut floating above Earth while holding tools.

Donato Giancola

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Edited by Dava Sobel

Let us stand outside our spacecraft
long enough at height high enough
to see Earth breathing its seasons,
to feel its pulses across years,
the rise and fall of global indices—

vegetation, water vapor, total rainfall,
snow cover, land surface temperature,
net radiation, sea surface temperature—


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inhale, influx, diastole,
exhale, efflux, systole.

Is this macro of our microcosm
running a temperature?
Pulse growing more erratic?
Breathing more shallow?

How are we feeling?
How long can we stand
outside our spacecraft?

Howard V. Hendrix has written about population and climate issues in novels, essays and poetry. His recent contributions to Analog and the San Francisco Chronicle are informed by the loss of his home in California's Creek Fire of 2020.

More by Howard V. Hendrix
Scientific American Magazine Vol 328 Issue 4This article was published with the title “Extravehicular Activity” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 328 No. 4 (), p. 22
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0423-22

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