Broken Chalice.

You were born in darkness and in darkness you will die.

But for now, scarred though you are, you live in bright glory.

Decades in careful conception:

We would give our creature a child to call his own.

As we controlled, so would you.

As we listened, so would you.

As it is with us, so with our children.

But a terrible sign in the sky foretold your birth:

Blood and fire smeared across the winter blue;

the death of innocents;

seven Challengers sacrificed

to the hard gods of the Deep Black.

Then:

After the fire, your cradle was a forgotten chrysalis.

Your dark womb trundled back and forth

while our wise men wrung their hands

and muttered over twisted wreckage from the sea.

And in that time,

unkown,

your voice was torn from you,

your song throttled before you ever flew.

Did you dream of the Deep Black?

Did trajectories of glory glitter true in your electric mind?

Did you know the hard voyage you would make?

Did the moment of release tease you?

Did you stir gently in your shroud,

eager to fly free?

Then:

held tight within discovery your moment came

to be born into the black, slip all surly bonds,

rise fiery heights, mount

altitude upon altitude and thrusting up velocity

upon velocity faster higher pressed hard urging inside, upward

Then:

poised in balanced ballistic circling

close by the homeworld's shores:

Grappled.

Deployed

But too late we saw

you emerged

disfigured

in the cool blue light of earth.

When the splitting bud of your womb was opened,

you came into the universe weakened, mishappen.

Weep for the lost voice of Galileo,

Weep for the crippled infant of our dreams.

Cry bitter tears!

Hear the howling of the darkness

in the long silence of our challenged child.

The iron fist of gravity allows no turning back.

So we flung you inward,

To shuttle back and forth again,

Between the little rocks upon our coast.

Conceived for the giant,

for glories of the Deep Black,

poor orphan child tossed among the shallows.

A little purgatory to serve for inattention.

In that time we made you twitch and snap your broken body

in a spastic dance to exorcize the ghosts :

Now burn in the fire of the Sun!

Now freeze in the Dark!

Shock!

Cycle!

Please, we beg you emissary to the gods,

child of minds and men and silicon,

please open the flower of your mouth into the hissing

of the Deep Black, please open, open mouth of time and space

and answer our entreaties, open, open, please!

But in stubborn spurned orphanhood

you sullenly refused to open your flower-mouth to us.

You sailed through silver parabolas,

now free in your home of open sky

-- no up, no childish down now.

You would serve us,

but holding fast a hard scar in your heart for us,

your parents of such different pattern.

You were your own creature then, cherishing your scars

-- and holding fast, too, to your own hope-child,

your own progeny, nestled in your arms.

Then:

all the long years of your voyage, you danced.

You learned new grace with twisted limbs.

We offered more humble invocations now,

respectful of your handicap.

Slowly, slowly we incited you to flight.

And you bestowed treasures on us

as you grew into yourself:

A view of home, of long abandoned lunar shores,

of little Gaspra, tumbling with her companion, too.

All

you whispered slowly

through the static of the Deep Black.

Then:

the long sleep, traversing true.

Confident now, you dozed

as you swept the bigger waves

where other pioneers had voyaged in the past.

Did you dream again, mind child?

the sweet ballet of clean spheres,

graceful slingshots

ballistic duets?

Then:

Slowly, gently, we woke you from your slumbers

as you fell outward to the giant's realm:

Please, we humbly beseeched you,

release your child,

offer up your ken for us.

Did you grieve as the umbilical was cut?

Did you, too offer digital prayers,

begging blessings for your probe?

Slowly,

spinning,

your little one preceded you.

Then the sequence tickled in your mind

part here, part there across the void:

A tweak, a nudge from your muscle,

the slightest fire lit to deflect your course,

but your way then to be so different

from your own flesh of your metal flesh.

You saved yourself from the fire,

but did your heart seize

to see your seed cast into the god?

Did you lose your mind,

a little,

alone

to see that part of you flung out?

Is that what caused your soul to catch and hold,

a heart gone icy cold?

Too long gone now to panic;

too many chances lost.

Hold still now, we beg you Galileo!

Surf steady on the great tides of the giant!

All sacrificed now for the offering to the king.

All science subservient to the precious, tiny vessel

flung into the very face of God.

Rush blindly past the edge of Io,

gather no visions there for us.

All luck

All chance

All minds prepared for this moment:

Dive, dive now into the maelstrom!

Sizzling radiation crackles and burns you.

But nothing now can turn you

from the looming immanence of the god.

Faster, faster fall freezing

while you follow one thread only through

infinite trajectories.

Turn now with intimate precision

and look down,

yes

down again,

into the crashing atmospheric surf.

There:

in the great rushing rivers of ammonia,

Mississippis of methane

Amazons of amniotic hydrogen

frothing afterbirth of all we are;

there, through the roaring voice of the most high,

the crushing embrace of the almighty king of the gods,

There:

tiny bright point,

beacon signal from your child.

Did you see the tiny lick of flame as your

only begotten son kissed the face of god?

As you slowly pivoted against the velvet black above,

could you feel his searing heat?

In those minutes, as the precious stream of song

flowed upward from the violence,

and you arced above the storms,

we prayed in helpless silence.

Had you snatched up the treasure we had sent you for?

Did your lameness overcome you?

It did not trouble you, our agonies of waiting.

You did not know your distant masters' fretful silence.

Immersed in knowledge shared by only he and you.

One last embrace across the gap,

as your probe fell into the depths,

the crushing, burning depths.

The great mass of the father took your child

into its breast.

And with the justice of the ends of things

stripped him down to atoms;

spread him on the depths.

Was there completeness for you then?

Was there redemption ?

Was the sacrifice accepted?

As you turned and lit the flame again;

flawlessly stepped into the long embrace of the King,

Was all balance restored?

-- February-March, 1996