Oumuamua

"Tell me, I would ask him, how can I endure the earth?” ― Louise Glück, Averno

[cover is (I think) by BonesOfJulySupply]

This next post in the Cherry-inspired series is all about being a stranger. The condition of being a foreigner in new spaces, the confusion of it, the way it makes you become a small thing inside something much bigger than you.

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Oumuamua ¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵

In 2017, on the island of Maui, astronomers noticed a strange object, unlike a comet or asteroid. Its tilted orbit and high speed meant that this visitor arrived here from outside our solar system. They gave it the name “Oumuamua,” which is Hawai’ian for “a messenger from afar arriving first.” It was the first interstellar object (aside from dust) that we have ever seen in our solar system. It came here, likely, in the aftermath of a giant collision in its place of origin. Still, scientists are not sure where it came from.

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spider lullaby

Inside my crib, the gentle rocking of my mother
soothes my fearful mind.
I find this new house strange and dark —
an un-beautiful thing.
Tall shadows flicker on the walls,
restless and hurried
They’re un-quiet, barking, and murmuring
a flurry of foreign words

My mother says her handiwork’s a gift,
delicate and dandelion-soft
She is unwavering in her effort to please
the great gods of our home
I watch my mother while she guards them,
and I wonder
What could be more divine that the act
of her creation?

The night is made of moonlight and silk —
silver dreams glinting;
I rock myself inside the tattered crib 
to soothe my fearful mind.
My mother has not returned to me:
there is no doubt.
So when the strange gods tear at our temple
I simply close my eyes

and let it happen

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untitled

First, the light, then the flesh;
We eat things with many seeds
and sleep on the damp moss

The sun chases its own tail
like a lost, lonely wolf cub.
We learn of the in-betweenness

We blink, our skin ripens
like sweet, spoiling peaches
wrinkling at the stem

In the sky, there is no more home
One step. The forest swallows
the strangeness of this place from us

We find ourselves asleep
in the underbelly of the earth
dreaming of the humming of stars

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Read the previous poems: age of jupiter | kimah | GJ 504 b | Venus Blushing | glass storm

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1. https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/oumuamua/

2. https://www.space.com/oumuamua.html

3. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/surprisingly-simple-explanation-interstellar-visitor-oumuamuas-weird-orbit

4. https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/oumuamua/10-things-mysterious-oumuamua/

5. https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Interstellar_asteroid_is_really_a_comet%20