While the hours pass the night

With lightly feverish apathy,

I focus weary concentration

On the task that looms precariously.

 

“Here’s a chance that won’t come twice!”

My freshman teacher promised.

And as three years later I stay up late

I admit at least she’s honest.

 

The goal: to send to space our hearts,

Our souls, our crux unique.

Four of us, I the leader,

Began with hope that week.

 

“Potato blight, we’ll send to space,

We’ll test the cells’ resistance

It’ll be over and done in a year,

And we’ll improve space subsistence.”

 

Delay after delay wracked our dreams

As shuttles launched and landed.

We took the time to practice and plan;

I could pack the payload one-handed.

 

At last one humid August morn,

We gathered our hardy crew.

The gleaming rocket ascended to night;

In the core, our tubers flew.

 

With that spire our dreams and troubles

Lifted past the atmosphere

Leaving us weightless, thoughtless, free,

And filled to the brim with cheer.

 

My high school career was shaped like potatoes

Phytophthora infestans are all that I’ve known;

But now that our starches have reached for the stars,

My life I can finally redeem as my own.