The Siberian Pine

“We wish you a good flight.
Everything is all right.”

Поехали!
Poyekhali!—Let's go!
Said Yuri Gagarin
Into the Space Age

On
Twelfth April
Nineteen Sixty One.

On
Vostok 1
One man
Became the first.
First to leave.
First to enter.
First to orbit.

That was
Cosmonaut Gagarin
Call sign
The Siberian pine
and later
Hero of the Soviet Union

He had
A fantastic memory
Perseverance
A sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings
And a smile "that lit up the Cold War".

Apollo Astronauts later left a medal on the moon
in a memorial satchel
To commemorate the Cosmonaut
Who started the Space Age.

The Motherland hears
The Motherland knows
Where her son flies in the sky