Satellite – Jim Friedman

Satellite


Think of 'Now, Voyager', 
when Bette Davis says
“we have the stars” and lights
up her cigarettes for
two. Well, this is the blaze
our loneliness ignites.

Red dot in the mind’s eye,
a micro-dot in space,
a particle of dust
blowing away. Goodbye
to us, the human race.
This is our sign of trust

that there is life elsewhere.
It travels, lit by suns
and stars, waving its arms,
signalling “Hello there!
Look at who we were once,
at this bracelet of charms,

these shapes of how we lived,
could think, laugh and cry,
conscious of pain and love.
You who have found this, sieved
it from the chaff in your sky,
accept it as our dove.

Our solar-powered ark,
it brings you knowledge we
existed, if not us.
Our world is a blue bark,
cloud-sails hoisted whitely,
on its continuous

revolve lit by our sun”.
Imagine photographs,
artefacts, messages
recorded, speeding on 
through space, our epitaph’s
cradle, rock of ages.

It will touch the surface
of some other mind
light-years away from us.
Millenniums in space,
inside the solar wind,
playing Sibelius,

Cole Porter, Ella Fitz.
Imagine translucent
giants examining
our dusty deposits, 
this bauble we have sent.
Think of them listening

to the tinny surprise
of its sudden whirrings,
its hologram. The bright
giants wildly surmise 
as Fitzgerald’s voice sings
'In the Still of the Night'. 


Jim Friedman