Hangar Doors (Rollout)

(lin­er notes for track 1)

There must be a day, I imag­ine,
when a great ship is final­ly
born to the world…
a day unlike all the others.

The sound of horns is in the air,
call­ing all the peo­ple…

and they come from near and far,
excit­ed­ly, with such antic­i­pa­tion,
for they have worked
and dreamed of this day
for so long.

A sud­den hush
the moment comes…
and the great hangar doors begin to open,
slow­ly, slow­ly,
hun­dreds of feet of steel
and gears heav­ing and groan­ing…
no per­son moves, no one can breathe
at the sound of those great doors
slow­ly, slow­ly,
open­ing, and…
look!  there she is!

The crawler-plat­form rum­bles into view
car­ry­ing the great lady-ship atop;
pris­tine and glis­ten­ing she is,
even in the shad­ow of the doors.
Slow­ly, slow­ly,
ever so slow­ly,
now almost out of the door­way…
and sud­den­ly, with a pierc­ing flash,
the first rays of sun­light
glance the top of the great lady-ship,
blind­ing every­one for an instant
with her brilliance!

A cheer goes up!  Hands clap, some tears…
the moment is pure mag­ic.
This shin­ing bird of flight,
an engi­neer­ing mas­ter­piece of all times,
just emerged
from behind those hangar doors,
now stand­ing proud­ly,
gleam­ing with the work and sweat and vision of thousands.

And as the crawler-plat­form con­tin­ues to roll
slow­ly, slow­ly,
out to the launch pad
car­ry­ing the great lady-ship atop,
all of the peo­ple who have dreamed of this day,
all of them there still stand­ing in awe,
silent­ly think
the same col­lec­tive thought–

“I just want to see her fly!”

copy­right 2008 Anne Cabrera