Many in curiosity, some in urgency,
seek secret signs in corners dark and cold,
red and brown,
in rock, or ice, or vapor.
The distances astound;
the technologies delight;
the vistas inspire.
And yet our seeking has yet to find.
Contrary news may yet arrive,
astonishing all, tomorrow
or never.
Still now, and for unknown ages to come,
and everywhere here,
and nowhere else we know of yet,
there is life.
There is life
in forms yet unseen
in places unvisited,
thriving in blessed, bursting abundance.
Here, we are not alone.
We are, in our oneness, multitudes.
We are children of eons,
parents of tomorrow,
and cousins of all.
But there, in the dark and empty,
there is no one, and no thing, and no where.
Nowhere like here.
You see, we never left Eden.
The apple did not open an ignorant mind
but closed it to wonder.
In shedding innocence we forgot
…that our Earthly garden,
swims in silence through a void vast,
odorless and monochrome;
…that the only paradise we have ever known
or truly needed,
is ours,
and ours alone,
to tend.
What might we might grow with more reverent hands?