BANJO LIFTOFF [1964]

   by Dick Bakken

What was it bothered me about the singing?
If I were to say there was none.
Would that explain?
There were only those stern upturned faces.
Gawking the moon.
White blasts lifting silver rockets.
Voices.
     This is the new frontier.
     This is the new frontier.

The Revolutionary War.
Silent scenes of Concord and cannon.
Colonists crooning the “Yankee Doodle.”
Our Civil War. Statues and flags. With songs.
Riverboats. The movement West. Railroads. Cattlemen.
Silent. With songs.
Frontiersmen.
Pioneering struggles flickered in songs only they had lived.

Then shots of skyscrapers. Turnpikes.
Especially the rockets. The moon. The stars.
Folksy voices.
Accompanied by banjos.
     This is the new frontier.
     This is the new frontier.

The high-salary men gripping slick graphs sang no songs.
Nor white-overalled technicians.
Eyeing ready rockets that final double-check.
The upturned faces.
Strapped scientifically into space suits.
Were not singing.
There were only those banjos of beyond.
     This is the new frontier.
     This is the new frontier.

Empty sounds of living struggles.