Poem 2848
Relative time from departure body --
Thus, from Earth we hail.
Sailing to Wolf at light-speed tardy,
Cryonic-dreams of Dale.
Awakened, rudely, at a mere eleven:
A technical glitch, a fail.
Three years to seven, it's never exact,
The crew all burnt and stale.
A compulsory note confirms the fact,
Twenty-five years until mail.
Nothing can dim the sadness I feel,
Save for my faraway Dale.
Androgynous android without a face
Plays chess and laughs so frail.
Reprogrammed to simulate the grace
Of my beloved, bountiful Dale.
Repairs all done -- frozen sleep begun....
A starship commences to wail.
Entering Wolf's red-dwarf, m-class sun.
Thawed, I recalibrate the ACF sail
For low-level orbit around planet 1061.
The lander is prepped to auto-bail.
Message received at base Alpha Centauri --
Four years to Earth and Dale.
A fuchsia sky and gravity-rich mass.
I scan for colonists, to no avail.
Starlight dining with my android lass,
Upgrade face of porcelain-pale.
I signal, farm, rave, survive and wait ... for
A reply from Earth and Dale.
I deflate and weep at the message reaped:
She was killed by a rusty nail!
On mission eve she planned and weaved,
Then cloned her brain to scale.
Bestowed to a droid, my darling destroyed --
'Twas a masterful, Holy Grail code employed.
We walk together the newly trail --
Zeke T. and android, Dale....
Copyright © Tom Arnone | Year Posted 2016
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