Proxima Centauri b

You might exist—
another planet with water where we could live
a new life…
leaving behind the old, polluted earth
heavy with history
236,000 metric tons of plastic in the ocean
radiation and oil flowing out of our taps
holes in the ozone layer
air so thick you can see the particles flowing
into your lungs.

We’ve broken this one.
Let’s find another.
Let’s spend the rest of
our lives preparing for
departure
training to handle
stellar wind pressures 2,000 times more powerful
than what we’re used to.
We’re humans!
We can handle anything the universe throws at us—
and Proxima Centauri b is a gift…

Only one star away—
we could leave this place
where we can’t look at one another
without remembering
bombs hate war prejudice
tearing each other apart.

Today I went to a museum
where I saw first editions of holy books
by Kepler, Galileo, Nasir al-Din Tusi,
ancient Chinese astrological charts,
Galileo’s telescope…
He was convicted of heresy and imprisoned
for refusing to lie—
but imagine what his eyes saw
through those small circles of glass.
The exhibit finished with the Origin of Species.
Maybe the next stage of our evolution
awaits us in starlit vast universes we haven’t dreamt of yet.

Don’t we owe it to Galileo and Darwin to expand?
To expand relentlessly?
To touch every solar system to drill for oil
lightyears away—to possess the eternal—
conquer space?
Because once we’ve drilled and dug up
every inch of this old earth, we’ll need new
real estate.

How do we balance the wonder and beauty of human intelligence
with greed?
How do we stop destroying everything we touch?
When we’re all in bunkers on Proxima Centauri b,
who’s to say we won’t destroy those oceans, pollute that air,
turn on each other in hallways lit by fluorescent lights and stamp each other out?
Convict the future scientist who wants us to return to earth
and clean the air and the water, plant trees, reintroduce extinct species—
of heresy?

When they’re sending us all away on
glistening metal rockets I’ll hide.
I’ll stay here.
You’re on this planet
and I want to be with you.
I know you aren’t leaving.
For all the times we lay on our backs
in the tall grass tracing out constellations and
riding the Milky Way,
I know you aren’t leaving.
Your feet, and mine, are planted firmly
in this reality.
We stare at the stars
delight in their glory yet
remain unseduced.
There are 3,397 exoplanets that
might be habitable but you and I will
never go to them.
We’ll stay here, combing the beaches for plastic
macrodebris.

I love those other planets—
stars reach out to us from lightyears away!
I don’t need to touch
them to love them.
This place is my home
and I’ll keep it safe
until my body becomes part of it.
Maybe celestial winds will blow
one of my atoms to Proxima Centauri b
through the universe—
but until I’m down to atoms
I’ll be here, reading
Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking
and reminding
anyone who’ll listen
that there’s still time.