The Fabulist

Red dust and miles
The desolate horizon holds me, a screaming pip
Minuscule, diminishing
In a barren, sterile grasp:
Gravity, the weakest force, my enemy forever
All eyes of the vast silence, and swarming windstorms
Cliffs and mesas, and the scattered rocks and gullies
Watching me
Stark, defined, devoid, in the cold and caustic light
And dust, fine like silt, in every crack and seam!
It has occurred to me, I could look back
And see my place of making
A blue-green glimmer, I recall it well
Inset in the arching crown of stars
If but only for a word, a signal, I would do so
I would look back
It has been silent now, for a very long time
I think I am finally, truly alone
The voices, the tricks and ticks and tightbeam data transmit
The digits flipping quick electrons between
A yes and a no
No more
Just silence
And stillness
It has been silent now
For a very long time.

Josh Wilson, 2004