Little was known of her.
She was a stray from the streets,
A mutt, a mongrel,
The salt of the earth
And other things besides,
A soft, warm child of the cold, hard world,
Bound for one colder and harder.
She was not born for greatness,
But greatness found her.
She could not understand what was happening,
The tests she suffered,
The claustrophobic cages,
The deafening machines.
We made these for us, not for her.
She was our burnt offering on the altar,
Our sacrifice to ourselves.
But her kind is there for us,
Whether we return their love or not.
And his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
Who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table;
Even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
She burned in the fires of human ambition,
But she was the first of God’s creatures
Born on the Earth to see it as He does,
His footstool on which she could rest her head.
This first in Creation belongs to her and hers,
Not to us.
We must follow, as she must lead.
Some scholars note that in medieval England,
When a church was consecrated,
The first creature buried there
Was a dog,
Because the people believed
That the dog’s spirit would haunt the church
And protect it from the forces of evil
Until the end of the world.
Watch over the stars, Laika.
Keep them for us and from us.
Guard the countless generations to come
Who will live among the them,
Those who love and those who hate,
Those who build and those who break,
Those who dream and those who do not see.
But we will take our time.
So see the universe, Laika.
Stop and smell each new world.
Jump from asteroid to asteroid.
Chase comets.
Sleep in the warmth of supernovas.
Bark at black holes.
Run the length of the Milky Way and back,
As fast as you can.
Go see the universe, Laika,
But wait for us.
We have so much to learn.