Alien life

Yes, there may be planets somewhere
in the coldest, furthest outposts
that we have not explored fully.
And yes, it is a possibility
that there might be bacteria hiding
underneath some scattered boulder
in among a thousand others
on a crater floor not scanned yet.
But generally there is consensus,
now we’ve spread out from our homeland
to the furthest constellations
(only dreamt of when we started)
that no-one else is here except us.

Legend has it, we were cocksure
when we first began to travel,
that the data indicated
other tribes would be encountered
as we travelled through the galaxies.
Mathematic probability
told us there would be life somewhere,
maybe not as we imagined,
maybe not devolved from carbon,
maybe not reliant on oxygen.
Thus, we set off, keen and hopeful,
sending probes into the blackness,
pulsing signals through the universe,
waiting, waiting for an answer.
But as the silence roared like engines,
more and more we realised that
life was just a chance encounter
on one insignificant planet.

Archeological excavations
on our long-dead frozen homeland
seem to propagate the theory
that in mankind’s short pre-history,
the earth was full of alien creatures,
quadrupeds that roamed in millions,
things that flew without a space-drive,
beings that survived in water,
tubes that slithered on their bellies,
and other strange exotic creatures
that could not move their limbs from earth
but fed upon the carbon dioxide.
But by the time that we moved onwards,
all of these had disappeared,
killed perhaps in some great battle
to determine master species.
If only we had known at that time
that the universe was silent,
perhaps we could have worked together,
to resolve our alien differences.