How lovers journey through the solar system

Moira Garland

Mercury
iron at the core polar bears circle around us   no deeper cave to explore everyone else laughs

Venus
gradually we move making each day longer piecing together the whole     morning or evening silence

Earth
the rock in sight     water as blue as hope   we reflect on luck  the sun’s strange radiance

Mars
the tilting        makes us sick   pressure mixed waiting for spring

Jupiter
many moons shine bright  our god is Galileo  expanding into delight    dizzying show-offs drawn to a centre

Saturn
iron silicon nickel oxygen all compounds immune to frostbitten orbits    flawless wedded rings

Uranus
gas metal solid frozen      appear on a dark horizon   but this is our season of devotion    desire dipped in cyan

Neptune
confirming a mathematical observation  hydrogen and helium     gauge the geometry       we have combination

Pluto
a qualified unknown rocks curving wide at a distance reckonings remade

The Science

This poem is inspired by both historical and modern knowledge of our solar system via such technology as the Voyager and Cassini probes, in tandem with the journey through time that a human might make with one significant other. At the age of 9 I observed Sputnik from our back garden. As a young adult I was astonished by the first moon landing. These and other subsequent discoveries have been a source of wonder, just as observing my own – and others' – journey through different stages of their life has been.

The Poet

Moira Garland is a UK poet with journal publications to her name including The North, Dreamcatcher and forthcoming in Stand and Sarasvati. Her latest anthology inclusions are The Brown Envelope Book (Culture Matters), Afterwards (Dreich), and At Home in Our City (Leeds Poetry Festival 2021). Science left her behind in school so she embarked on a lifetime of reading and learning about scientific matters of interest which has led to writing poetry related to science, astronomy in particular. Other poetry interests include social and political justice. Twitter/Instagram @moiragauthor.

Next poem: Missing the Point by Imogen Arate