Zeta Minor

 

Zeta Minor

 

On the very edge of the known universe

where you must learn to thrive

after passing through boundaries

that separate old worlds from new.

 

It is beyond Cygnus A,

a one way trip, and they say

bringing any matter across

is forbidden, will bring down calamity -

you may not rely upon it, no source

of energy here,

you’re tampering with forces

beyond hideously dangerous.

 

As distant again from Ortoro galaxy;

any plausible strategy

becomes nothing but fallacy

propagated by bleeding hearts and artists -

you can no more bring me back there

than I can bring you here,

to even attempt to try is catastrophe.

 

That galaxy, far from the Anterades,

where scar tissues still breed

in our mind’s eye, will multiply –

if you want, go ahead, try:

but see what it did to my limbs,

the outlook’s stagnant to grim,

atrophied muscle from the attempt -

debt’s doubled, summer’s spent.

 

Any mined minerals, any dust churned

from that sullen world

is venom, toxaemia with properties

so mutagenic you lose identity

like I forgot myself, went beyond

and left just memory to hang a peg on.

 

How naïve - to think in ways back,

that formulae may calculate the abstract

into something concrete,

you can no more turn base metals gold,

spark warmth from cold

after planetfall, Zeta Minor broods –

the furthest border, adamantine barrier

between what we left there

and what we brought here.