2023 Commended - Louise Guy, 'Voyager'

LOUISE GUY

Commended - 2023 Tower Poetry Competition, 'The Planets'

 

Voyager

Shards of ice pierce the darkness, like the fleet

Of bitter regrets that lurch on the sea

That is the human soul. No sunshine sweet,

Not even the ghost of light reaches me,

Out here, alone in what they call a Cloud,

Named after some man drowned in the Lethe’s flow,

But is in fact an emptiness, a shroud,

A body whose soul fled long, long ago.

 

It is called the Oort Cloud. What’s in a name?

To me, nothing. I have no soul, don’t share

Their strange curiosity, as if the same

Planets, moons and sun, if they were not there,

Would not continue their relentless course,

Oblivious. The drop of blood they call Mars,

Whose bleak land they say may be a life source,

Is but a speck from here, and even the stars,

 

Burning themselves to beauteous destruction,

Are tear drops on the Universe’s face.

Majestic Jupiter and ringed Saturn

Are lonely giants in the vastness of space.

But there is one special planet far away,

A marble where green and blue perfectly blend,

Where for decades someone has sat all day

And interpreted the signals I send.

 

In fact, a nameless horde of women and men

Have fixed their once sparkling eyes to that screen

And let their lives flicker away again,

Their work gather dust, forgotten, unseen.

While the world around them withers, they reach

In desperation to the vast unknown.

But I who know, if they listened, could teach

Them to love Earth, the planet they call home.