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Our Drive Outward

WC Roberts

Poetry
Science Fiction

“Separation is successful, control...”

it leaves ISS; a mite, a blip on the screen
its trajectory through the satellites and clutter
heading outward
a man-made mite, this busload of
robotics and gear under propulsion, cloth of gold
sail extending to catch as catch can
the solar wind  
it threads the needle, passing through
the asteroid field, and rounds a gas giant
driven by the gravity of it all

driven by Sol, and our need to satisfy
our curiosity and, yes, a hunger for fuel or
what? a place to rest, on the outward journey
to be, and not have been
we’ll map these dwarfs of rock and methane ice
in the Kuiper belt—Haumea, and Makemake
it’s not the end, but only the beginning
of the end, which our means
alone must justify

                                                             



 

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Copyright 2012, WC Roberts. All rights reserved.

WC Roberts lives in a mobile home up on Bixby Hill, on land that was once the county dump.  The only window looks out on a ragged scarecrow standing in a field of straw and dressed in WC's own discarded clothes.  WC dreams of the desert, of finally getting his first television set, and of ravens.  Above all, he writes.


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