I Reworked this Haiku especially for the Boeing "Material Identifier Recovery Effort"
Chuck Williamson

Test article does not extinguish
but parts have been installed.
No one hears your screams.

Many parts- all are burning.
Career going up in smoke.
Time now to squeeze trigger?

Certification files that large,
might be very useful.
Too bad- that they are missing.

Your test plan is rejected.
Only perfect spellers
Will have plans approved.

Flame caresses part, while
stopwatch ticks away.
Disclosure letter follows.

First fire, then smoke.
This thousand dollar part
burns so beautifully.

With searching comes loss
and the presence of absence:
Test data missing.

The construction that you seek
cannot be located but,
endless others exist.

There is a chasm between
requirement and performance,
the parts cannot bridge

Yesterday it did not burn.
Today it is burning.
Flame tests are like that.

There is, I deem, a deeply strange,
And pitiless beauty beneath it all,
Supporting existence against
The nothingness of eternity.

At times, my thoughts in darkness
embrace reality’s slippery edges- its
Ones and zeros, darting out and in,
Shifting form and moving on.

Out of this random dissonance,
An emergent melody unfolds,
With notes both faint and seductive-
A cadence of chance and oblivion.

Enchanted, I follow the music ever
Deeper, into a labyrinth of reflection.
Alone, tired, lost and stumbling,
My mindfalls echo in the shadows.

Logic and reason- my ball of twine,
Unwinds into the sunlit world behind me.
When I tire or falter or stop in fear,
I give the ball a tug… and its thin
lifeline of reason leads me home.

What if the hokey pokey
Is all that it’s about?
Living for the fun of it
And then just checking out.
Reasoning in such a way,
Makes one wonder why,
Living life completely,
Beats deciding not to try.
So as the night draws closer-
Last time to twist and shout.
Best do the hokey pokey
Before the lights go out.

NASA’s workshop at Mandalay
The conference- near a beach.
For lightweight spacecraft, that will one day
Bring the stars within our reach.

Here, time and space are spanned with thought,
Minds alone must voyage- until.
But bathroom intervals are surely not
And in my case never will.

Evening drinks, talk of interstellar flight,
Cobweb entangled thoughts and mirth,
Then- as I walk alone at night,
My mind returns again to Earth.

Two rocks I spot, out on the beach,
Waiting patiently in the sand
‘Till I bend down and pick one each
Glinting starlight, guides my hand.

Surely Earth and tide have rocks to spare.
Space and time will have to wait,
The stones I choose, go home by air
To a better- desktop fate.

If the red slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
but thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

The voice said, ‘There is no room for Me and Thee.’
The door was shut.

After a year of solitude and deprivation he returned and knocked.
A voice from within asked, ‘Who is there?’
The man said, ‘It is Thee.’
The door was opened for him.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea,
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more-
the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men;
the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort-
to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful
of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold,
grows small, and expires- and expires, too soon, too soon- before life itself.
(excerpt from Marlow, in Youth – 1902).

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”