Laika mockup (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Confinement is imprisonment
Little pioneer of science
Once the vastness of your world
Comprised of dirty, city streets
And endlessness was hunger
Cold and pain
Brothers and sisters found
In science’s sepulchral walls
Once worthless finding worth
In expendability
All together chained within
Ever decreasing latitudes
Oh gentle, over spanning space!
To launch within a cage
To the limitlessness of all
So alone, you’ve always been
But now strung out on stars
Ornament to knowledge and solitude
To watch you ascend is despair
Pure heartbreak, drenched empathy
They say your pulse rate rose
With heat and bleak humidity
Your little soul stretched out
So near and far from any god
Too far to yet be found
And taken home
At any rate too far
From any god of gentleness and care
You had but hours suspended
In the terrible mystery of the dark, enveloping sky
Be proud you reached new territory
Dumbstruck by perfect, incomprehensible fear
Coffin circling our earth for a multitude
Till as a pyre you burned out as you fell
At last back home within our atmosphere
© Helen Valentina 2014, All Rights Reserved
helenvalentina 
This has great strength. I think some work would make it stronger but it implies a profound understanding of something else, beyond the subject. Really good.
Thanks Philippa – you are probably right re the capacity to work on this more, I wrote it pretty much in a stream of consciousness. 🙂 🙂
This is so sad….that poor dog. And the picture, oh my! xxxxx 🙂 I will stick to my rainbow-pooping dog here on earth. 🙂
Sounds like a good plan! yes, it is a very sad story!