slept in ice for three hundred years
with three hundred tales to tell others of his kind
before tragedy struck
and the tardigrade was thawed out
by farmers clearing a forest with fire

tales of valor and despair
wisdom and knowledge
the last stories of his ancestors
forgotten and buried in time
washed away by holy water
in the name of a new diety

flickering lights on the last outpost
three hundred light years from what was once home
he wound his clock one last time
and released the beacon
unplugged from life support
sat on regolith, mesmerized with the view
of last star in galaxy going nova