We Miss You Now, Fom al’ haut b

Of many things we wanted most
Were other suns that served as host
To planets like our own, with life,
And maybe one without our strife.
 
And then not far away we saw
An exoplanet; we said, “Ah!”
Its star was bright as it could be
Its name we called, “Fom al’ haut b.”
 
We thought we’d found another place
For creatures like the human race.
And not too far away it lies
Just close enough for Hubble’s eyes.
 
But then, it changed from bright to blur,*
We had no choice but to infer,
That what we saw no longer is,
What once was hard is dusty fizz.
 
Our guess is now, the planet’s dead,
Hit by what we here now so dread,
Another body slammed it hard
So, broken, b is just a shard.
 
"It’s dust right now," observers say,
"Collision turned it to puree."
A fate that once produced our moon
Destroyed Fom al’ haut all too soon.
 
We’ll miss you now, the planet b,
You gave us hope someday we’d see
And meet a peaceful race of friends.
But now in dusty shards that ends.
 
Whatever happens here, it seems,
The strife, the sadness, broken dreams,
Is universal in its scope.
And so some say they’ve lost all hope.
 
But many suns around us glow
And closer still are those we know,
The members of the human race
With whom we share this tiny space.
 
Why look afar for things right here,
For life that lives upon our sphere?
No exoplanet we can find
Can ever match the human mind.

Why wait to meet some creatures distant
When friends are here within an instant?
Now turn away from things afar
And look to living where you are. 


 
*SciNews. Fomalhaut b Doesn’t Exist, Astronomers Say. 21 Apr 2020. Online at http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/fomalhaut-b-planetesimal-collision-08347.html     Accessed April 21, 2020