Portal To Infinity

The explosion erupted like an inferno below him

Not a naturally religious man he prayed to his maker

Then the rush as he lifted off from the sweet earth

At the edge of the atmosphere an invisible barrier

Eons old untouched by mankind but not this day

As he moved into orbit he saw the wonder of Earth below

The first words uttered by our species in the vacuum of space

"I see Earth! It is so beautiful!"

He witnessed the Earth for a single orbit

Over Africa the ground control shut of his engines

And he re-entered the earth’s atmosphere

With no power to slow down the craft

He ejected above earth and parachuted to fame

As The first man in space the pioneer of space travel

When the American astronauts landed on the moon

In July 1969 the crew left a commemorative medal bearing his name

Warmth of mutual occupation and respect melted the ice of the cold war

From Russia came this special man

Thank you Yuri Gagarin

authors note

Author Notes

On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, he and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died in a MiG-15UTI crash near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and the ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square.
Gagarin was survived by his wife Valentina, and daughters Elena and
Galina. Elena Gagarina, Yuri's elder daughter, is an art historian who
has worked as a director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001.[25] His younger daughter, Galina, is department chair at Plekhanov Russian Economic University in Moscow