Waterworld
John C. Mannone
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
—T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Twilight air, thin.
Sun, setting hot red
fills the sky scarlet,
yet the ocean, thick
with cool salty chalk,
ripples over my smooth
arms finning the wetness,
my head barely above
the ebb in the shallows.
I stare at the blackness
of space, unveiling
a million suns sifting
through cosmic dust. I ask,
Can you see the center,
that dazzle in Sagittarius?
My daughter squints through
the special glass. I wonder
if she thinks about midnight
worlds that canopy the sky
with light. Those planets
pinned on ends of the ecliptic,
shiny giant beads, one ringed
with crystals, the other reddish
brown with moons, so many moons.
I heard it on the news today.
They found another one perhaps
like ours, a world that shook
its sun. Can you see it? I say,
That star, near Omicron tauri!
They think it has a water world
a hundred million miles
from its sun,
its bright yellow sun.
Now hurry, we must dive deep.
The sun will soon shift from shadow
and the air is much too thin.
