Ray Bradbury: If only we had taller been

Ray Bradbury wrote this poem in celebration of the Apollo moon landing in 1969.

The fence we walked between the years
Did balance us serene

It was a place half in the sky where
In the green of leaf and promising of peach
We'd reach our hands to touch and almost touch the sky

If we could reach and touch, we said,
'Twould teach us, not to, never to, be dead

We ached and almost touched that stuff;
Our reach was never quite enough.

If only we had taller been
And touched God's cuff, His hem,
We would not have to go with them
Who've gone before,

Who, short as us, stood as they could stand
And hoped by stretching tall that they might keep their land
Their home, their hearth, their flesh and soul.

But they, like us, were standing in a hole

O, Thomas, will a Race one day stand really tall

Across the Void, across the Universe and all?

And, measured out with rocket fire,
At last put Adam's finger forth,
As on the Cistine chapel

And God's hand come down the other way
To measure man and find him Good
And Gift him with Forever's Day?
I work for that

Short man, Large dream
I send my rockets forth between my ears
Hoping an inch of Good is worth a pound of years

Aching to hear a voice cry back along the universal mall:

We've reached Aplha Centuri!
We're tall, O God, we're tall!