No Place Like Home?
A backward glance, red planet, danger behind them now
Forward to home, beckoning, through the vacuum
Five years frozen, silent, unreachable
Guided, electronic, inanimate, yet intimate
Their bodies, every function, regulated, monitored
Lights flicker, screens pulse, displays empty
Home in sight, not blue, nor green; dead
From space to earth, engines scream, no one hears.
Awakened, slowly yawning, stretch away the years
Vision, blurred, minds foggy, outside, dark forbidding .
Clarity, of mind at least, realisation, no welcoming party
The world, their world, our world, home no longer
Irradiated, eradicated, populated by souls alone
Together, no further thought, hatches open
Death rushes in, taking them
To join with those they left behind.
Ian Woolger ...