The Astronaut's Return

A bouquet of honeyed skin,

you are as I'd imagined.

Our eyes the same, the way we smile.

long legged wild child, little sister.

Too long I've been in exile,

I've paid enough for my misdeeds.

I only wish to come home,

but none believe it. With my name,

a fleet at my command, I own the stars.

Why do you turn away?

The circle worlds are multiple.

It is life, not death, that has no limits.

You tell me you're my brother,

yet you don't know us.

Born a millennium before,

You cannot understand our ways.

When you were banished to the stars,

our sun was always rising.

Now it sits above the westmost mountain.

Ancestor or myth, you come too late

to save us from the end.

Our cherished histories endure

within the sea and frag,

our lives a part of the elemental clock—

why would we ever wish to leave?

Soon this last ring of time,

my small part of it, will disappear.

Yet it is mine, and all that's come and gone

in this infinitely small space

is just for me.

So I beg you take your ships away,

leave us be.