(He’s the forgotten man on the first manned moon landing mission.
We all know Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. But what about Mike?
He was there with them making history. Afterward, he became
Director of the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Museum. What did he think
as he walked past Columbia, his capsule on display in the museum –
the very same capsule he once occupied, alone, a quarter of a million miles away?)

A Legacy for Michael Collins

The loneliest man since a lonely Adam
Was his instructed legacy to follow,
He so mightily maneuvered the cosmos
In a magical machine of Apollo

Michael, was always third, and, the other,
Not due to lagging; but, to fortune’s wheel,
The moon saw him as third of three,
Placed behind denizens Edwin and Neil

But when the aforementioned frolicked
And recorded history down in luna’s dust,
It was Michael, now alone in the dark,
Whom the denizen’s lives they’d entrust

Only except for Adam before Eve,
His aloneness was unique in history,
No visions or voices from his mankind
Had earlier prospected this periphery

His ship… Columbia … a borrowed safe haven
From where Michael and his universe starred,
His ethereal home far away from his Rome…
Columbia has a soul, so reluctance to discard

This earth emissary-carrying conveyance
Earned its keep, allotment, time to sleep,
Now perched… stationary and motionless,
Entrusted… but a machine… so, not to weep

Columbia… caretaker, protector of its men
Placed and positioned in Michael’s museum,
Columbia… Apollo-sired; but, born of terra,
Stellar, optimal, and purveyor of carpe diem

Michael’s museum, Columbia there rests
And no longer needed, depended to ascend,
As Michael, aware, walks by, emboldened
Smiling prejudiced, proudly, his old friend