Remnant

(Picture Credit - Daily Star)

We watch from space

Safe in our spaceship

As a small rock planet,

That has orbited it’s star

Over seven and a half billion times –

All those billions of its years –

Is peeled away

And eaten

By that very sun

That gave it birth.

Two and a half billion years before,

This star ran dry of hydrogen

And grew

From yellow dwarf to red giant.

Now, nothing is left of three of its worlds,

All engulfed by flame

As the sun grew

Into a giant ball of death.

All history is gone.

Nothing to show

For countless civilisations

That adorned the third planet.

But oh what’s this?

We spot a tiny spacecraft!

Must reel it in.

Examine it.

It has a name:

“Voyager 1”

Inside: a Golden Disc!

A Golden Record.

We can play it.

Images of hairless bipeds.

Ancestors from that third planet.

Sounds of animals and someone laughing.

Images of bipeds taking sustenance.

And best of all

More sounds

Of something called “Rock Music”:

A being called “Chuck Berry”

“Singing a song” called “Johnny B. Goode”.

For we have feet too

And it makes them tap.

Paul Butters

© PB 12\12\2019.