Where Are We?

Voyaging that colossal distance
from the solar system that is ours,
itself a mystic's fantasy skirting
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune,
Voyager 1 has informed of volcanoes
and oceans and new moons where
none were suspected.  Cosmic
radiation, trans-portation, solar
winds, a million miles an hour.

Searing solar winds, cosmic rays,
a shifting magnetic field, water-ice
and nitrogen - who wrote this script?
Interstellar messaging set to circle
and tease an alien intelligence - will it
parse, intuit what life as we know it is?
Will it acknowledge emotions, music,
art, beauty and emotion ... love?

Streaking across the Universe
the messengers take heed of fleeting
particles, minute and major, sweeping
through the Milky Way, our galaxy,
but one of countless others within
and beyond space and the coy notion
of time.  And then, the cusp of discovery 
on the vaster distance of interstellar 
space littered with the detritus of 
supernovae exploding into pieces of 
themselves.  Where are we?