I've already written 300 space poems. But I look upon my

Hear, O children of wonder, the vision of Story Musgrave: “I’ve already written 300 space poems. But I look upon my ultimate form as being a poetic prose. When you read it, it appears to be prose, but within the prose you have embedded the techniques of poetry.” These words come not from a cloistered poet alone, but from an astronaut, a man who has walked among the stars. His declaration is both bold and humble, for it honors his past—those 300 space poems—while pointing toward a future form, one that is neither wholly verse nor wholly prose, but a union of both.

The origin of this longing lies in the very nature of expression. For ages, humanity divided poetry and prose as two distinct paths: one bound by rhythm, line, and cadence; the other flowing in freedom, unchained by meter. Yet again and again the greatest voices have sought to merge them. The psalms of Scripture, though written in lines, flow with the narrative sweep of prose. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass straddles both worlds, sprawling like prose yet charged with the thunder of poetry. Musgrave, gazing from orbit upon Earth, follows in this lineage. He dreams of a language that carries the richness of poetry inside the skin of prose.

Consider Saint-Exupéry, pilot and poet, who gave the world The Little Prince. His words appear to be simple prose, a fable for children. Yet within those sentences lies the heartbeat of poetry—images of stars, roses, deserts, and foxes that pierce the soul like verse. When he writes, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye,” we hear not explanation, but poetry clothed in plain dress. So too Musgrave seeks: to write in a way that disguises itself as prose, but whose marrow is luminous with rhythm, imagery, and song.

The power of poetic prose is in its deception. The reader thinks they are walking a familiar path of paragraphs, yet they are suddenly struck by the thunder of metaphor, the hush of cadence, the lift of an image that transcends. It is the Trojan horse of literature: prose on the outside, poetry within. For Musgrave, who has seen the Earth rise from the moon’s horizon, such a form is fitting. The universe itself is prose in its vast expanse, yet poetry in its beauty. To write of space in such a hybrid form is to mirror creation itself.

Yet beware, children of words: not every merging of prose and poetry is noble. Many have tried and failed, producing writing too ornamental for story, or too plain for song. The true poetic prose demands discipline—it must honor the clarity of prose while secretly carrying the heartbeat of poetry. This is why Musgrave names it his “ultimate form.” It is not the beginning of a writer’s journey but its summit. To arrive there requires mastery of both arts, as the warrior must master both sword and shield before uniting them in battle.

The lesson is clear: do not cage yourself in one form. Learn poetry—its rhythm, its imagery, its tension. Learn prose—its structure, its breadth, its clarity. And then, when you are ready, let them mingle within you until your words, whatever shape they take, carry both precision and fire. For the greatest truths cannot be bound in one vessel alone—they need the expanse of prose and the intensity of poetry together.

In practice, let each seeker take up this challenge: write one page of prose, then infuse it secretly with poetic technique. Let your sentences breathe with rhythm, let your images shine, let your metaphors slip into the lines unnoticed. Read Whitman, Saint-Exupéry, and Toni Morrison, who all mastered this craft. Write of your world, your struggles, your joys, in prose that sings like verse. In doing so, you will not only honor Musgrave’s vision, but you will also step into a tradition as old as scripture and as new as the stars.

Thus the teaching endures: the future of writing lies not in division but in union. As the stars themselves are both matter and light, so too should our words be both prose and poetry. Story Musgrave reminds us that the ultimate form of expression is not in choosing one path, but in weaving them together, until the reader sees prose, but feels poetry. And in this weaving, our words may rise as high as the heavens themselves.