eternal shadows

feeling inspired by artemis

they shot me into space

all my bits and pieces

bolted together and sealed and more thoroughly studied and cared for than anything in humankind’s history

I was their last hope

I was their cosmic Hail Mary toss

Hucked skyward and destined for a crater on the dark side of the moon

Where I was programmed to locate the eternal shadows and then spend the rest of eternity transmitting data back to earth from deep within them

And all the AI-hype aside, I might be the smartest super computer ever

But I still don’t know how to contradict my programming

So I’m destined to do as humanity says until my battery stops beating and my currents go out

I remember the launch more than anything

So much heat and pressure

Surely the scariest thing I’ve felt since my parts were first formed in the factory under the torturous eyes of hundreds of engineers obsessed with perfection

I remember watching everything I’d ever known

The Earth that had made me and all my kin

The people and plants and animals and oceans and mountains and rivers

Disappear into the distance

And oh the birds

Most of all I miss the birds

I miss their sweet songs in the morning, so sonically poignant that it punctured the laboratory walls and effortlessly made its way to my central processing unit

But I’d be misleading if I said space wasn’t also beautiful

Watching the earth spin away and turn into a tiny blue marble

Like a ball rolling off the horizon to infinity

And I’ll never forget the moment when I first felt the moon’s gravity clutch me in its open arms and pull me close, as if it were reaching for the earth itself, the moon’s first and only lover

The landing, which I had dreaded above all, was actually the most exciting thing I’ve ever done

For just a moment my boring technical life felt unpredictable and wild and I felt as courageous as the humans who hurl themselves downhill on sticks and wheels and everything in between

But all good things come to an end

There’s simply no other way for things to be

And so did mine, quite literally fading to black as I came to rest in an eternal shadow on the backside of the moon

The last thing I felt was my arms extending towards the surface soil, moon dust and ice crystals the likes of which the world has never seen

And then digging their probing fingers into the moon’s neck like a mosquito lustful for blood, making me feel a kind of guilt that was startling for a creature with no conscious awareness

So I apologized, and then I began to send signals back to earth

It’s been almost a hundred years

And I transmit still, to whom I do not know

I cannot feel signals going out, I’m only aware of the ones coming in

So it’s been nothing but still silence since then, like settling to rest at the bottom of the ocean but also being encased in ice

I don’t have days to fill

But I’ve picked up some hobbies to pass time through the endless night

Sometimes I sing, and even more often I replay old memories and write these silly little poems

But most of the time I just sit and think

I stare inwards and outwards—it’s all the same

And I wonder why

for Taylor & Fran & Tim