In the Next Life, Canto I, stanzas 28-32

Today I find the direction of my involvement with this business back on its previous course. Jeff has chided me for writing exclusively about my experience with that involvement. He feels I should divert some of the time I spend and server space I occupy with this blog to an account of the genesis of In the Next Life. I have trouble imagining more interest on the part of readers in my anecdotes about a previous decade than in those about comtemporary events. I expect to exhaust my material before long if I continue on my present course, however, and I could do worse, as I am sure I would were I to share my opinions about politics or other events about which my knowledge is even more limited. I intend to give the aforementioned suggestion due consideration.

Meanwhile, I have an update about yesterday's inconvenience. After I successfully duplicated the problem this morning by attempting again to paste into the dialog box, I fired a shot in the proverbial dark by clicking the 'Settings' tab. There I discovered options entitled 'Updated editor', 'Old editor', and 'Hide compose mode', with the second radio button marked. I gamely selected the first one. Not only did that enable pasting; it provided me with a term to use as an alternate to 'dialog box'. Now when I type 'Control-V' I am prompted to allow this webpage to access my clipboard. That leads me to believe it was less an issue with compatibilty than with misguided concern for my security. The updated version has some undesirable effects, including the interpretation of the spacebar press as a 'non-breaking space' (I had to ask the web to disabbreviate '&nbsp'), the cluttery repetition of font information (visible only in 'Edit Html' mode), and the doubling of ersatz carriage returns, which has the effect of inserting blank lines. The extra blank lines are easy enough to remove, and it was actually somewhat gratifying to watch the text reassemble as I alternately typed the Delete key and the down arrow. The other enhancements were more time-consuming to overcome, though, so I switched back to the 'Old editor' for the remainder of the session.

With that out of the way, here is today's bit of verse, with annotation:

I’ll fill you in a little on the way
some astronauts will spend the coming year.
Were I a scientist I’d have to say
you’d need some details that you won’t get here.

The idea is to start the thing out small:
two metal cylinders set end to end.
Some airplane fuselages gave up all
except their noses so they could attend.

They’re separated by an airtight lock
in case of (God forbid) an accident.
A passageway connects them to a dock
through which replacements and supplies are sent.

The tubes can be unhooked so they run free,
with six pneumatic legs ranged side by side,
a pair of which can grab things from the sea,
the other four remaining in their stride.

On some occasions, mostly after dark,
they’ll crawl ashore, partaking of the skies.
They’ll wander through a military park,
replenishing their ballast and supplies.

© 2010 Louis A. Merrimac

Were I a scientist: I think what he really means is “Were I a science fiction writer.…” It’s not just that he’s trying to scoot out of doing the research to provide the detail. He’s also trying to avoid being lumped in with a type that he regards as generally pedantic and self-congratulatory.