Night is a charcoal cough speckled with ghost lights,
tired and over-romanticized. Consider space exploration
as a response to our planetary eviction notice. Twenty-one
identical radio signals travel three hundred billion years to us.
Scientists speculate at their ancient origins—invitation or bait?
The waves hark and hark, phonetic through the infinite darkness—
anonymous abyss. Space beckons to us and we bark,
eager to consume its conspiracies. Have you seen the rover’s red,
barren backup plan? This parched planet is being prepped
like a doomsday base. Meanwhile I sync with the blush
of sunset, the hush of night. I never want to stop inhaling
this sap-sweet air—this bark breath. I count the exposed
concentric circles, the beheaded antebellum omens. I swallow
gulp after gulp of air (as if I could transport the atmosphere in my belly).
I scatter seeds: little soil-tucked prayers. One day we too
will be reduced to echo, our own expired surges hurtling
through hearsay history. Perhaps this is how
we get to Mars: as a myth, mysterious and unexplained.
I dream of womanning a small ship into the invisible eye
of a black hole—Pink Floyd’s “Time” on vinyl, naked and alone.
I ask myself aloud, “What happens to a soul surrendered to a vacuum?”
We especially like “Earth Hymn.” It’s got poetry and power. It’s a fresh and unpredictable musing on the climate emergency and ecocide. Stars as “ghost lights,” seeds as “little prayers,” and “womanning a small ship”—not to mention “bark breath.” Good stuff! “Earth Hymn” wins our Editors’ Choice Award for Issue 12, with two thumbs up from each of us. The poem earns a cash prize of $50 (USD) and will be reprinted this fall in Volume 6 of our annual anthology.
hails from sunny SoCal where she studied English Education and Creative Writing at Cal State Long Beach. She is an emerging poet with plans to obtain an MFA in the coming years. Bianca’s literary journalism has appeared on Poetry Foundation, OnDenver, Drizzle Review, and Adroit Journal.
