Goddard Community—new and old, poets and not:
Below is our offering. NASA asked us what might this mission teach us about ourselves and our universe. NASA asked us how are we as a people are stretched and deepened by explorations beyond our Earthly home. And we have answered—collectively, surrealistically, idealistically. We are ready for our words to ride aboard the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft on its journey to the asteroid Bhanu/Bennu. Here’s hoping NASA loves our poem enough to launch it into space.

Infinite Indigo

 (A collaborative poem by students, alumni and faculty of the Goddard College MFA in Creative Writing)
If the sky is a box
Then it would remain forever open.
If we’re all just light with bodies
Then I will call your body home.
If I could squeeze between the Pleiades
Then I would crack open and return once again to the sky…
If the moon were my compass and the stars my GPS
Then perhaps I could understand my mother—the world.
If I could fly through the nose of a star
Then the gravity of the black hole would consume the edge of infinity.
If the night sky opened to magic
Then the galaxy would be alive with indigo.
If I got lost inside of a nebula
Then craters would become mountains and mountains craters.
If I discovered a whole new galaxy
Then the entire universe would be mine to swim through.
If night is really day and day is really night,
Then the stars would be my bed and the space between my trampoline.
If the stars belong to us…
Then the light of us is surfing the breaks of gravity’s wave.
If outer space is the size of our heart muscle
Then our world could be wrapped in an incandescent silver light.
If the velvet blackness launches us into space
Then a million stars could catch us in their net.
If we’re all just light with bodies
Then would the rings of Saturn be our children or our gods?
If the night sky opened to magic
Then the galaxy would always be alive with indigo.