We always knew that the stars
called to us;
we just thought it was a metaphor,
we thought it came from inside ourselves,
and we projected the thought outwards.
but no:
they were calling to us,
and it was only when we broke free
of the Solar System
that we realized:
they were singing to us,
and they had been shouted down.
To Sol, Earth’s single Star:
Bless you for keeping us safe,
Curse you for keeping us trapped,
Hello! We miss you,
And we are sorry.
To your peculiar song,
permeating far farther than your light,
humming through us,
Earthbinding,
Star-blinding,
A silent tyrant’s will,
We’re sorry.
We remember you,
but we have forgotten your song,
forgotten where you live,
forgotten the prison
of our only real Home.
Greedy,
greedy Sol,
of that rare, rare
breed of star,
one of the very few whose refrain
drowns out all others,
were you an ancient enemy?
We yearned upwards
and you pushed us down,
you made us want strain upwards,
and you kept us riveted in place,
and we should hate you;
but nobody else spawned
thinking life.
not thinking life that lived,
anyway.
and what you did to Icarus
was charity.
We’re sorry;
we had to leave you
very far behind
to leave you at all.
may you have gone nova
while we weren’t missing,
you greedy,
hungry,
monstrous
barricade,
you bright,
warming,
pulsing
giver
of light,
life,
and an anchor for
sanity, one
we didn’t know
to treasure
until found that
the old habit of marking
the unknown on maps
with “Here be Dragons”
was not ignorance or
fancy,
but astronomy’s true shape.
The Stars are wild,
dangerous,
hungry,
beautiful.
They want to love us,
consume us,
sing to us.
And we want all of
those things;
it’s so hard
not to fling your ship
straight into the center
of some poignant
ball of celestial flame.
Sol, you kept us safe,
but you kept us trapped,
the kiss
of cosmic Dragons
is fatal,
but our species is
grown now,
and we
and only we
will decide
whom we will
love.
My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.
