Space Dog by Christine C. Rivero-Guisinga

A poem remembering and grieving one of the first dogs sent to outer space.

First published in The Philippines Free Press on 21 February 2004. “Space Dog” was a finalist in the poetry category of the 2004 Philippines Free Press Literary Awards.

​From the author:

The year I wrote the poem was the year I learned what really happened to the first dog sent to space. She was given a name that meant almost nothing; but it still sounds like such a beautiful name.

I am mourning the space dog Laika.
Her happy face was painted in a book I lost.
And she is lost. Her body frozen, floating, forgotten.
They say that nothing, nothing rots in outer space.
She could still be out there now,
circling the stars.

As a child I learned two songs about the stars—
“Twinkle, Twinkle,” “When You Wish…” (a home for little Laika)
At night, this rhyme I recite even now,
“Starlight, star bright…” Just in case. Nothing lost.
And so our wishes hang in outer space
with the tales grown children might already have forgotten.

Orion. The one constellation I have not forgotten
for nothing is plainer than his belt’s trinity of stars.
Beloved of Diana. Rival of Apollo. Hunter set in space.
Could you have seen the trail of space dog Laika?
Sirius could chase the satellite we lost.
Faithful Canis Major follows you ’til now.

Do children still know these stories now?
Or have the maidens, giant beasts, and heroes been forgotten?
What takes their place when myths are lost?
Perhaps, instead, our children know the secret name of stars—
distant suns. Around one revolves our space dog Laika.
A generation after might still find her spinning quietly in space.

What else did we send to die in outer space?
White mice, cats, apes. (I hear even tycoons and boybands now.)
Did they have names, these pioneers, a real name like Laika?

If they did, children’s books allowed them all to be forgotten.
But not their tombs.                 They reached the stars,
sacrifices launched for the footprint on the moon. What was lost?

This is the title of the book I lost—
A Little Golden Book. “Explorations in Outer Space.”
Men had only then begun to leave the earth, straying nowhere closer to the stars.
The universe, its vastness, cannot be measured even now.
Someday, if what we learn is weighed against what we have forgotten,
will it matter that the airless void was too cold for space dog Laika?

Sputnik space dog never came home, but Laika’s
lost satellite will never be forgotten. And now the city glare
seeks to stop the night.

                                         Yet it only hides the stars.

Christine C. Rivero-Guisinga works for a humanitarian organization. She maintains an informal gallery of amateur photography and short poetry inspired by the haiku form at Instagram.com/storyseamstress.

Thank you for reading!

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