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Poet Personification

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Poem submitted to “Planetary” poetry contest, William Kelii Kekaula, sponsor, March 18, 2026.

ICE GIANT'S WHISPER

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Out past the rubble belt, beyond Saturn’s rings,  
where sunlight thins to a ghostly stain,  
I await—Neptune, a blue enigma,  
a storm-wrapped titan humming in the dark.  

Earthlings, you think you know me, 
but what can you know from such distance?  
Your telescopes catch only glimpses:  
a cyan smear, a swirl of methane dreams.  

Consider this:  
my winds scream at 1,500 miles per hour,  
faster than any sound your throat has shaped.  
A Great Dark Spot—yes, I have one too~  
swallowed storms whole before it vanished,  
leaving astronomers scratching their heads.  

I am not stone, not metal, not anything solid  
you could stand upon. My mantle churns  
with water, ammonia, methane ices~  
a slushy ocean thick enough to drown planets.  
(You earthlings would freeze before you sank.)  

My rings? Oh yes, I wear them,  
though they clatter like broken necklaces,  
dusty and uneven. Perhaps I stole them,  
or perhaps they are the debris of moons  
that dared orbit too close.  

And my moons!  
Triton, my captive, spins backward,  
a frozen ball of nitrogen geysers,  
its fate already written in tidal decay.  
One day, it will come too close,  
and I will shred it into another ring.  

Even time bends here.  
A Neptunian year is 165 of yours~  
long enough to watch empires rise,  
crumble, and be forgotten  
before my orbit completes.  

So when you next look up,  
spare me a thought, earth-child.  
I am the last sentinel,  
the boundary keeper,  
the quiet blue watcher  
at the edge of your solar dawn.  

You think you know me,  
but the dark beyond holds secrets  
older than your sun.

12th gradeplanetpersonification

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