The Last Word On Nothing

What follows is a poem about the Voyager spacecraft I wrote a long time ago, when the world and I were very different than we are today. For a multisensory experience, you can read along while listening to a splendid set-to-space-noise version here.

Barnard's Star

I send my heartbeat to you,
and the sum-song of my dreams.
Someday you'll unpack the impulses,
the muscle-clicks like cooling cars.
Through endless fields of fire and dust
we send whale song, one noisy kiss.
Bach. A baby's cry.

Every other romance will wane
and waste away; symphonies are lost 
without their listeners.
Even the whale reduces
to a cage of bone and air.
But fast to you, bright Ophiuchus,
one whispered love is dancing.

*

I have thousands of unpublished words on my computer about Voyager, about hope, about Druyan and Sagan, about the pretty stories we tell ourselves and one another. This isn’t the place or the moment for any of it. This is a moment for finding proof good things are still possible, that everything’s not lost. For choosing awe and wonder. For reaching toward one another. 

Life and illness have gotten the better of me lately, so this’ll be my last LWON post for the foreseeable future. But even if I’m out of sight, that doesn’t mean I’m gone. I’ll be out there, picking my way through the black and blue, breaking down, one piece at a time, but always full of love.

Thank you to the People of LWON for letting me ride along these last few years. It’s been an honor.

And thank you, whoever you are, for reading. For being here.

*
Astrophotography by Dev Benjamin via Unsplash. Audio by Squid Pro Crow, a.k.a. Grant Balfour and me.