there was math involved

when i was a kid i put a firecracker
into a lunch box
lit it and closed the lid
and threw it into my closet

i peaked to see the lid blowing off
then opened windows to get the grey smoke out,
when mom came home i told her so she’d quit worrying
cause she smelled the smoke

if i built that real moon rocket a few years later,
the explosion would have blown it to smithereens,
they had the thing go up for real, it did
and kept going up and up and out and far

now, before it happened the word was out
real good, because everyone knew,
even the night was perfect that July,
and the astronauts took a camera along

good planning to have a camera for everyone
everywhere in the world to watch it live,
the picture wasn’t perfect
that hardly mattered, there it was,

we saw Neil Armstrong come down that ladder
we knew his name right away, and that he was from Ohio
and we heard his words when
he stepped his boot in black and white into moon dust

we sat on the floor eating popcorn, as close
as we could get to Walter Cronkite, the TV and the moon
when he said one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind