#106 - alien object visiting

15.4.20

106

alien object visiting

an alien object

has entered our space

this happened while we weren’t looking

what happened to Border Force

out at the Oort Edge?

why were no passports checked?

is it asteroid comet

this that

planetisimal?

no less, a speck

on its way, and why?

is it visiting, lost?

solar sail or dragon’s tail?

there was a line-up

but no formal identification

and it has a name

’Oumuamua

(Hawaiian for ‘scout’, so sinister

but it didn’t come with that,

must be an alias)

long and thin

now too far in

now gone

too far

to see at all

won’t pause

but will reflect

pointy edgy of the otherworldly

and lovely that we can’t know why

could have been a spear

and if we chase it

will it bite?

all skies are edgy with objects and dreaming

but here is a tour of inspection for sure

and comes from another time altogether

interloper, some have said

implying we are here by rights

how breathlessly it goes

at its determined pace

(26 kms / second)

and hear that not-quite-vacuum hum

some say whoosh

that might be music

come up close

laboratory conditions

could we tune to it

flying pingfork

must it not be?

run out of juice

so drifting

where in the world?

not at all, not at all

a courtesy call?

this could be a mercy mission

hunt and here’s the fox

who’s next?

fleet of Vogon poets come

drunk on the ancient cadences

to which all are condemned

chivalric yet

after fire and feast

bone of the anciently deceased

reconnaissance, and so attack?

all hands to glitter at the portholes

I see them micron-sized aboard

what we’d call organism

but be wrong

slaves cling and their masters saunter

(have to get some exercise)

or is this the tomb-ship?

(if not to begin, but now?)

no, animation all suspended

waiting for the wake-up call

a precious light, divinity

the interstellar answer-stone

none of this for the naked eye

though they sex it up with yearning

having come so far

not so much luminous as numinous

transcendental fleck of what if …

of five billion years ahead of us

from a first generation star

no more mundane

the exiled spider

or maybe mosquito

(cosmic equivalents, I would suggest)

but why deride doubt’s benefit?

is this object misunderstood?

maybe offer a feed and a drink?

‘come stranger warm by our mild star’

of course it could be a rock

(tablet teeming commandments?)

new options there

was chucked?

discarded clock

a list of guesses

the tabula rasa

speculum

lost sock

celestial garbage of some sort or other

kitchen utensil that missed

one way or any other

flying signifier

single pixel

on which all of our signs reflect

careful of measurement

their Eve Adam shown

truth store / stone

bearing all meaning

putting out signals we cannot detect

or having once done

given out

as ghosts do

and sometimes

it’s just the cosmic cigar

clod or pebble, who can tell?

stone young gods once skipped

but all fed, nestling, tucked up now

and dreaming

the lesson was

‘space is time’

I like to think there was a wager

‘how far until they’ll guess’

’Oumuamua

roll it around in your mouth if you’re thirsty

it starts with a glottal stop