I remember so much and yet so little of that day,
I remember the woods near our home where I would used to play.
The den I made, smothered by oak and fern,
The dragonflies sailing zephyrs and their power that I yearned.

I remember clearer the presence of my father,
Struggling through gaps he was far to large for,
His smile strangely absent that day.
I remember words he whispered
"come child, today we are away."

Those words mean little now
So much more than they did back then,
When my mind idled with dragonflies
Locked in that wooden den.

I remember seeing the earth
Looking still, if not serene.
Defiant in it's rotation.
As countless ships,
Starward monoliths
Depart with naive expectation.

Some decided to stay,
As some always do.
The rest sail for space in search of silent refuge.
Once more we forgot ourselves
Embracing our own  foolish divinity.
Forgetting the folly of our past
As it echoes unto infinity.

I remember once, now gazing at alien constellations,
The lines we drew in shale and sand to mark our different nations.
The pettiness we adored and the diplomacy we abhorred,
We burnt the earth behind us
And fled unto the stars.
The last thing I remember,
That day in late September,
The last solar systems' ember
Was the rusting glow of Mars.

I forgot how much I missed that home
Over the twelve cold years in space alone.
This place is not so bad,
But the trees weep strange,
Leaves drooped and sad.
From my window I see my grandson run
Chasing the shadows of new earth's twinned suns.
Fresh from the forrest
A new found den.
A second chance
Don't
Fail again.