Sunday, March 01, 2015

Poem for Sunday, NASA Goddard, The Voyage Home

Soliloquy
By Marguerite B. Thompson

My father gave no word of love to me.
My mother practiced laudable restraint.
My Vulcan childhood lessons logically
Prepared me to despise the human taint.

I could not blame T'Pring, I saw that she
Let flawless logic over pledge prevail
For she would stop at nothing to be free
Wisely to mate with a pure Vulcan male.

Human tormenters cannot understand
Acknowledgement of feeling causes pain,
Cruelly subvert defenses I had planned,
Plot to anesthetize my watchful brain.

What will they find when I am ripped apart?
"I love you, Captain," written on my heart.

--------

The poem was originally published in Star Trek: The New Voyages by Bantam Books in 1978 (yes, I had the first printing, as well as two sets of reprints with new cover art). Since its publication, the poem has always been officially licensed by the people who own Star Trek. If you have complaints, take it up with them.

Paul's father's birthday was last weekend and we had plans to meet him in Ellicott City, but never got there because of the snow in Maryland and Pennsylvania. This weekend, Adam had too much work to leave College Park, meaning that if the whole family was going to be together, it needed to be near campus. So we already had plans to meet my Paul's parents near NASA Goddard before Leonard Nimoy's death made me want to explore strange new worlds all over again. We arrived with Daniel (who discovered a friend from high school who wants to be an astronaut working at the visitors' desk) and looked at the exhibits inside and rockets outside the facility.

Then we went to UMCP, where we picked up Adam and Christine to go to Mamma Lucia for dinner, after which we stopped in the Shoppers Food Warehouse next door to the restaurant to get dessert for Clair and supplies for our kids. We dropped off Adam, who stayed in College Park; Daniel came home with us to watch The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier, which we'd decided with Cheryl we needed to do after the two prequels last night. (Nothing will ever make me not love "not in front of the Klingons" and I don't care how bad the Spock v. Sybok or Kirk v. God plots are!) Here are some photos from Goddard and one from dinner:


Myself and Paul reflected in an early weather satellite.


Clair and Cinda in a Gemini capsule.


Me floating in space, or at least pretending.


Daniel with the friend from high school who works at the space flight center.


The friend took a photo of all of us.


IDIC worn in honor of Leonard Nimoy.


Clair's belated birthday dinner at Mamma Lucia.

On Sunday we are expecting winter weather again. Sigh.

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