Honoring Katherine Johnson

We remember Katherine Johnson
because she counted.

We remember that she came
from White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia,
graduated from college at eighteen,
and was the first woman to racially integrate
her graduate school.

We remember she was part of the team
that was the Computer Pool —
a woman, African American,
NASA mathematician,
pushing her way into briefings
where she was not expected,
working on the Mercury flight trajectories,
launch windows, emergency return paths
double-checking
John Glenn’s spaceflight,
mapping the moon’s surface,
bringing the Apollo 13 astronauts home.

We remember that she was a
aerospace technologist,
and that she was a wife,
mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,
member of Carver Memorial Presbyterian Church
for fifty years.

Maybe we saw the movie.
Surely,
we remember Katherine Johnson
because she counted.