I do not need to go up into space for 10 minutes to understand the value of gravity

This week, poet and artist Frieda Hughes reflects on the all-female Blue Origin space flight

GRAVITY

The three strands of friendship, fate and opportunity

Did not invite me into space for ten whole minutes

With five women and Lauren Sanchez.

I did not get to scream like a girl

As weightlessness shifted those pounds

That willpower failed to, for two-hundred-and-forty seconds

When the capsule hit the apex of the journey

And their flesh, blood, organs and brains

Became as weightless as air. I would have wanted to listen

To the silence of the stars as I saw the moon more clearly,

And the earth’s crust curve into itself as the world turned,

Not someone singing away the moments

I would never have again, signifying nothing.

In those ten minutes I boiled a kettle, fed my dogs and owls,

And watched the heavens darken; the lack of opportunity to fly

Was mine, but my sheer wonder at the skies

And the minuteness of my size, is free.

I do not need to kiss the dirt or wave a daisy

Having just fallen from the edge of space

To understand the value of gravity.