Den & Beth at their Havelock, NC home, August 1974

Probably could have used a flash with this picture.

During the first year or so of my being in Minot, I had to go out to a Launch Facility (LF) to watch a maintenance crew work on a missile.  This was the only time that I did have to go out to an LF,  I wrote the following poem based on that night in the silo:

In the Silo

I recall the surgeons bent by their work
across the patient:  tall,
rough in metal skins--
multicolored, yet all dull tones.
Beheaded three times of its single threat.
Never anticipating eventual re-mating,
but held unarmed,
awaiting passive signals or potent birth.
Mindless, but no monster.

All seeming about some harmless device--
wired,
lost in all those minor techniques.

Wise of their youth;
two stripes, and three, trained above this potential;
Wiring with the confident skills
of all who doctor life.

Tools,
never so terrible as what they tighten
or unleash.
Never smeared of the blood
they might heat.

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