If you’re at all interested in space exploration or even scientific advancement make sure to listen to Ray Bradbury’s poem “If Only We Had Taller Been”. In the words of the author himself it encompasses, “why I love space travel, why I write science fiction, why I’m intrigued about what’s going on this weekend on Mars, and… my philosophy about space travel.”

This video was made on November 12th, 1971, on the eve of Mariner 9 going into orbit around Mars. In addition to Bradbury, the others on stage include Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Walter Sullivan. This poem is what originally led me to read Bradbury and serves as a powerful motivator at the end of any long day.

If Only We Had Taller Been

The fence we walk between the years
Did balance us serene
It was a place half in the sky where
In the green of leaf and promising of peach
We’d reach our hands to touch and almost touch the sky
If we could reach and touch we said,
“Twould teach us not to, never to, be dead.”

We ached and almost touched that stuff;
our reach was never quite enough.
If only we had taller been
And touched God’s cuff, his hem.
We would not have to go with them
Who’ve gone before.
Who short as us, stood tall as they could stand,
And hoped by stretching, tall, that they might keep their land,
Their home, their hearth, their flesh and soul.
But they, like us, were standing in a hole.

O, Thomas, will a race one day stand really tall
Across the void, across the universe and all?
And, measured forth with rocket fire,
At last put Adam’s finger forth.
As on the Sistine Ceiling,
And God’s hand come down the other way
To measure man, and find him good,
And gift him with forever’s day?

I work for that.
Short man, large dream, I send my rockets forth
between my ears,
Hoping an inch of good is worth a pound a years.
Aching to hear a voice cry back along the universal mall:
“We’ve reached Alpha Centauri!
We’re tall, O God, we’re tall!