Pale Blue Dot (Revised Again)

Some more changes to the poem. Hope you still like it.

D

Pale Blue Dot

‘Earth is the right place for love’
Robert Frost

Four billion miles out
On the edge.
A camera turns
Refocuses robotic lenses
On this dust mote afloat
In a beam of distant sunlight.
Held by a solar thread
Remote and alone
Shrouded in giant darkness.

A self-portrait.

This speck of fertile rock
Like a grain of sand
Suspended in cosmic sea
The fragile petals
Of a wild flower, slowly unfurling.

No one is coming.

It is up to us.



© David Loffman

The Earth from the Dark Side of Saturn

Here is another photograph taken from the outer Solar System.

To the left just beyond the bright inner rings is a faint blue dot at about 10 O'clock.

The dot is Earth.

Pale Blue Dot

Pale Blue Dot

Four billion miles out
On the edge.
A camera turns
In deep space to face home.
Refocus robotic lenses
On this dust mote floating
In a beam of distant sunlight, drifting.
Remote and alone
Shrouded in giant darkness.

This speck of rock
Like a grain of sand
Suspended in a cosmic sea
Is home.

No one is coming to rescue us.

It is up to us.



© David Loffman


16 September 2007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_blue_dot