INTERSTELLAR PALINDROME

1

The millennial ship sails
		through the ages of man
	and the ages of woman too
			beyond the system's fall
into the dead space of interstellar waste
				where only hydrogen abounds

			sails onward through
	the unresisting vacuum
until the cells and molecules
	of those who embarked
		with dreams of destination
	not for themselves
but only their distant progeny
		have recycled countless times
	and more to feed and clothe
			the passing generations

2

In an inverted millennial landscape
	in the swiftly spinning womb
		of this artificial hemisphere
			the language itself evolves
	perspectives are reduced
		to an horizon always within reach
	gestalts are narrowed
		by a circumfluent maze
			of aging metal corridors

		the mother world long lost
	in the view screens
the mother sun only a pebble of light
	the messages that filter
		through the ether
	distorted by space and history
		warped like the pronouncements
				of a fallen ancestral god

3

when the millennial ship
	sails		no more
and the klaxon heralds landfall
		it signifies an event
			jumbled and apocalyptic
	as a second coming
		in the narrow minds
			of a gnomic and pale people

and many more generations
	of incarceration must transpire
			before they venture forth
	beneath a saffron sun
		squinting at the alien sky
			terrified of unbounded distance
	before they tread the earth
of their foster world
		and embark upon
			upward evolution once again

4

And millennia hence
			the legends will persist
		of a kingdom across the sky
		of ancient astronauts
			who styled the stars as their passion
	and though men of science
				will disparage such conjecture
	they will find their own passions
		turning to a like inclination

				where only hydrogen abounds
into the dead space of interstellar waste
			beyond the system's fall
		through the ages of woman
				and the ages of man too
their millennial ship will sail

					- Bruce Boston

Find out more about
Bruce Boston's writings via
The Locus Databases



Information about
Bruce Boston's book of poems

Cold Tomorrows

Gothic Press
4998 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, LA 7080

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