By Benjamin Waldrum
When a distant star looks back at us
Through its lidless, unblinking eye
Ablaze and indifferent to time
What will it see from what remains?
Will it understand the name we gave it
Since we ourselves will never visit
In our tendency to make familiarity
From the cosmic terrors of the void?
Will it zero in on our lonely galaxy
And our almost-empty solar system
Past planetoids and moons
Over the remains of rusting science projects
To the pale and bluish dot that was our home?
Will it penetrate our web of space debris
Through our shrinking atmosphere
Scan through the melted ice and risen oceans
To once alive but now eroding shores?
Will its unending sight perceive the gravity
From the sum of all of human history
And pronounce us a success or failure
A blink of time in which to judge?
Will it weep for what is there no longer
The precious joy of our existence
Curiosity, kinship, laughter, determination, love
Seen only now as ruins, overgrown?
Or will it find another heavenly neighbor
Infinite siblings of past and future
Existing, dying, born anew
To fix its silent gaze upon?
Benjamin Waldrum is a communications manager in the UAMS Office of Communications and Marketing. He has maintained a lifelong fascination with words and writing, and only requires occasional prodding to produce his own.