It has been 100 years since Ray Bradbury’s birth (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012). The famous author, probably most well-known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, was, among other things a lover of science and also a science fiction writer.
I would like to showcase his poem ‘If Only We Had Taller Been’ which he read on November 12, 1971 before the space probe Mariner 9 was sent to explore Mars. It has almost been 50 years since that day and now anyone with an internet connection can look at real images from the surface of our red neighbour, which is a little bit crazy when you take the time to actually think about it. Just recently, the new rover Perseverance was sent to Mars and is expected to arrive in February, 2021. Listening to Ray Bradbury’s rendition of his poem while keeping in mind how far we have already come can help to adjust one’s perspective away from the problems we may face right now and focus on something greater.
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 hand 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 tall 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 Sistine Ceiling,
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 Alpha Centauri!
We’re tall, O God, we’re tall!
