Doom
A shuttle lands on uneven terrain.
The door slides open;
stale breaths and odours of sweat
escape into a foreign atmosphere.
Ten feet touch sturdy rock,
walking on an unfamiliar surface.
Humanity's fate lies in their hands;
their ancestors long ago doomed Earth
with their toxic fumes and plastic seas.
A sliver of hope -
science sent-off an interstellar ship
to search for a new home.
An exploration that lasted centuries.
Hope was passed on
from one generation to another,
an everlasting flame that dimmed
each time it was passed on to fresher hands.
Amongst black holes and bright stars,
a catastrophic danger went undetected.
In the darkness of the dwindling fire,
blinded people lost their way -
logic flawed and emotion run wild:
“The universe must be punishing us.”
The eternal ship met its mortal fate: self-destruction.
Through an emergency shuttle,
five survivors escaped the assassination
from the devotees who sought
to end the human race
and the curse that lingers in their wake.
They landed, safely, on a planet
where life was strife,
where water streamed upwards
- they stood a chance
to build anew a colony,
repopulate the species.
This time, luck was on their side,
but it would be foolish
to bet all their chips - (Russian roulette).
Instead, they turn to faith,
and build a shrine,
for a god to lead their way.
The same god:
in whose name, the ship was annihilated;
in whose name, human lives were massacred;
in whose name, Earth was doomed to its cruel fate.
First of all, thank you to @whoshim for his feedback on this poem (among others) and helping me out polishing the poem. I would also like to thank @geekorner for his input, and the @isleofwrite for providing a great space!
The inspiration for this poem was a combination of reading a sci-fi poem that @whoshim wrote, and the book Freedom's Fate, which I had read a couple months ago.
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