Show Me Another World Poem by Etienne Charilaou

So many places I'll never see.
So many places I'll never be.
Even on this Earth, I feel this dearth.

What myriad forms this Cosmos array?
The starship Mind may quest afar,
propelled by the Drive Imagination

I see strands pristine on many worlds.
Waves of purest turquoise lap these shores.
But many oceans have no life
or only swim with simple forms.
The beaches will remain untrod
for eons hence.

I see a new horizon;
the edge of this world
is not as distant as ours.
To be washed o'er this cascade
is too easily accomplished.

I see ringed planets in the skies of their moons.
On one such living moon the inhabitants once
worshipped as a divine being their Ringed Giant;
and even though time has made them believers no more,
still their deep humility holds.

I see worlds of fire and rock.
Volcanoes and lava dominate
these harsh landscapes -
it is hard to see anything stirring safely
in these rugged fiercely-hot terrains.

And on other worlds delicate fairy creatures flit,
vaguely humanoid they appear but not as intelligent as we.
Their world is soft, non-predatory.
Nature there has found a way
to nourish without killing.
Elsewhere, heavy beasts lumber on 10 fat legs an endless sandy plain.

There is a murky world of great mystery.
A ball of olive green and grey, an Intelligence there broods below the thick cloud cover. Ancient and wise - it knows I have found where it is hidden but it also knows I cannot touch it, and so it bids me go hence with my mind - explore other regions, it speaks inside. We prefer to be alone, they/it says.

So I gaze at the vast expanse of inky starlit void,
and feel worlds scattered there like so many marbles.

Show me one more world.
A real one, this time,
I almost beg.

Beyond the imagination though I cannot see.
All the wonders are hid from me.
But this limitation I'll not bewail.
The Grand Tour awaits some
who go beyond the mortal pale.