This Way or That

May 30 2015

In high summer

when the heat is unbearable

I realize how close we've come

to fever, delirium

death.

Since winter's miserable depth

when bare skin froze

on contact

the globe has tipped

a few degrees south,

its brilliant blue-green surface

a tiny fraction

nearer the sun.

How infinitesimal

the sliver of life

on this Goldilocks planet.

How marginal we are

in a vast universe,

mostly cold, and dark

and lethal.

So we are going to Mars

just as we peopled the earth,

when men set out on wooden boats

to follow the stars

past the far horizon.

They say we must colonize space

because our time here

is finite.

Because we’ve treated the planet unkindly,

as disposable

as plastic.

And isn't it natural

for Man to explore?

Too restless, curious, dissatisfied

to tend to our garden

giving thanks.

The extremities

of heat and cold

are perilously close;

this immense planet

wobbling a bit
this way, or that

so nearly at its tipping point.

But, indifferent to us

will continue circling the sun

for many more billions of years;

blistering rock, boiled dry

or locked in miles of ice.

Flirting with life

in its narrow band,

a little this way or that.

There is lots of enthusiasm for exploring Mars: that exploration is our destiny; that that our species is doomed on a planet that will die with the sun, and this is the first necessary step away; that we have trashed this planet beyond repair, and are in need of a life raft.

I share little of this enthusiasm. Because there is still so much unknown right here: about life on earth; about ourselves. And the supernova is an unimaginably long way off -- our species has lots of time. And, most of all, what terribly tragic reasoning, to imagine "terra-forming" another planet after our stupidity and greed have nearly destroyed this one; a place so full of such wonder and beauty, so singular, so perfect for us.

This poem is about fragility, gratitude, humility. It's all there in words like tiny fraction and infinitesimal and marginal and sliver and perilously close and tipping point: that is, the unimaginably small window of conditions suitable for human life; the Goldilocks planet that would be our death if it were to wobble just the tiniest bit more. But if you read it as an endorsement of manned exploration of space, then I failed to make my point. I very much intended the opposite. I'm a "tend your garden guy"; not a "seek out new horizons" type.

(My thanks for this poem to Elizabeth Kolbert's PROJECT EXODUS: What's Behind the Dream of Colonizing Mars?, from the June 1 2015 edition of The New Yorker.)