Picture of the Day
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Monday
May 3, 1999
In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Today
It was a day of recovery
from ocean depths
to mountain peaks
off the coast of Canaveral
they found Gus Grissom's Mercury
nicknamed the Liberty Bell
trompe l'oeil crack still visible
the search team called it a miracle
to find the capsule on their first attempt
on the bottom of the Atlantic
where it's slept since '61
deeper even than the Titanic
Gus almost drowned that day
in a suit that was meant for space
and all the years that followed
they asked if he'd panicked
prematurely blown the hatch
until in '67 he was trapped
with White and Chaffee
in a fire on the launchpad
a routine test for Apollo
elsewhere it is snow
on a peak as high
as the ocean is deep
a local man found Mallory
who climbed Everest
because it was there
in 1924 leather boots and tweeds
he's been resting in peace 900 feet
from the top but whether he summited
remains a mystery
the widow Grissom says leave it alone
as if the spacecraft were her own
and mountaineers were quick to scold
those who buried the corpse of old
because it goes against their code
now that we've run out of space
and nothing's left to discover
do we dig up every grave
because it's there to uncover?
maybe it started when they found Pompeii
and robbed the tomb of Tutankhamen
today I found an 8 of spades
on back white letters spell Washington
where big leaf maple limbs provide
a canopy fit for a paratrooper
but how much longer can they hide
whatever's left of D.B. Cooper?
