Weariness of Travel by Frederick Pollack

They think in the vast reaches
between Planck length and that of quarks,
and every thousand years a crystal speaks –
probably not noticing 
we aren’t the last group who asked a question,
or the one before that. There’s still, barely,
an atmosphere. In the light
some rocks wear the brilliant blues
and fuchsias of tropical plants and insects
elsewhere. Why they do
is someone else’s field; we brought the light,
and we will take it with us when we go.
The crystals grace an undistinguished hill.
Why, long ago, 
the smallest of them spoke to us
is another question we’ll have to get
around to. The current one 
(to be answered this time, we hope, not merely
critiqued) is old: Where is everybody?
Everybody like us, that is – the type that move.
The stars out here are sparse. Looking up, 
I recall my own speculation: 
a death cult,
whether they joined en masse or bit by bit.

Frederick Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and two collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015) and LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). He has many other poems in print and online journals.