After the Moons
We came upon the plasma fields
accidentally. Our rockets burned
through the atoms of littered space, the dead.
We searched among the debris, hauled
their bodies on board. There were so many
we almost lost ourselves among them,
but in their radiation hardly recognised
the dimming lights they had become.
The scavenge order came, was carried out
smoothly. We burned the bodies, silent, roaring.
Through our windows their planets floated
like ice in a glass of bourbon. No morning
felt so dark in all that matter. We drifted
through the voids that angels could not
fill, rolled, shifted at the glances
of rock that hurtled past. We prayed, shot
photons into the deep emptiness.
What a strange grace. The captain broke
as he often did, his own dead world flooding
back to him. He played a recording
of a fog horn through the ship. Some decision
that was, billions of miles from any sea. In time
we settled by a lake of mercury, scattered
the remains, said our bon voyage. As we left
we saw natives cowered in knots, edging
to the mound of ash we’d left behind, bracing
as our thrusters brushed them outward. Our tools
were quiet once again in our safe darkness.
No lights flickered, the consoles lay lifeless.
And there was barely a word between us.
New moons were calling and we knew that
taking debris could be hazardous.
'After the Moons' © Russell Jones. ‘After the Moons’ from Spaces of Their Own. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and Stewed Rhubarb Press.
We came upon the plasma fields
accidentally. Our rockets burned
through the atoms of littered space, the dead.
We searched among the debris, hauled
their bodies on board. There were so many
we almost lost ourselves among them,
but in their radiation hardly recognised
the dimming lights they had become.
The scavenge order came, was carried out
smoothly. We burned the bodies, silent, roaring.
Through our windows their planets floated
like ice in a glass of bourbon. No morning
felt so dark in all that matter. We drifted
through the voids that angels could not
fill, rolled, shifted at the glances
of rock that hurtled past. We prayed, shot
photons into the deep emptiness.
What a strange grace. The captain broke
as he often did, his own dead world flooding
back to him. He played a recording
of a fog horn through the ship. Some decision
that was, billions of miles from any sea. In time
we settled by a lake of mercury, scattered
the remains, said our bon voyage. As we left
we saw natives cowered in knots, edging
to the mound of ash we’d left behind, bracing
as our thrusters brushed them outward. Our tools
were quiet once again in our safe darkness.
No lights flickered, the consoles lay lifeless.
And there was barely a word between us.
New moons were calling and we knew that
taking debris could be hazardous.
'After the Moons' © Russell Jones. ‘After the Moons’ from Spaces of Their Own. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and Stewed Rhubarb Press.
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Listen to Russell Jones perform his poem 'The Ant Swap'.
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