Following Laika, by Jennifer Weigel

Coming at’cha every Sunday at noon Eastern Standard Time EST – here’s more creative content craziness from Jennifer Weigel…

These were written as haiku and American haiku poems in memory of Laika, Soviet space dog and first true cosmonaut, the ex-stray was sent aboard Sputnik 2 without a recovery plan. 1954 – Nov. 3, 1957

Outer space
is dark and empty,
out of reach.

Miscalculated
meanderings fall away
as the distance grows.

The mission
fails to find life here,
only death.

The spaceship floats on,
a nasty metal coffin
outside the Earth’s pull.

The Moon blocks
communication,
voiceless drift.

The Void beckons me –
a dark vortex across space,
where there is no hope.

Emptiness
wraps me in its grasp
from beyond.

Shivering, forlorn,
the nothingness takes me in
to join my comrade.

The dog star
wags her tail with joy,
dulling fears.

We are becoming
one with the darkness beyond –
together secure.

Planet Earth
no longer matters,
out of reach.

(Image features altered photographs of Laika as if floating in outer space with text superimposed.)