by Marge Simon and Michael Fosburg
Their voyage spanned
a myriad of light years,
and then the rum ran dry.
Captain's voice turned stone,
"Put forth the Dyson sail,"
he said, lasering a crewman
who would not comply.
They gave his wasted body
to the vacuum, and heaved-to,
the starship's bones bemoaning
returning to the deep.
Perhaps they were the last
to brave the endless dark
in a ship built from the staves
of their determination.
Sailing on through space debris,
they searched for that blue globe
with diamonds in her sands—
a land the gods had prophesied.
As if answer to their prayers,
the coxswain cried "Land ho!"
and steered toward the farthest
galaxy along the rim.
Half mad, beset with scurvy,
the Captain spied a glittering,
a junction of the sand and sky,
and bade his sailors to attend
the sunrise of a new star rising,
making sparking diamonds
of an earth-type planet's shore,
at the universe's end.