where time stands still, and it is said there is no life,
just solid frozen crusts.
There are no bags for me to pack for the things I'd take along
and I wouldn't need a rocket ship to blast me on my way.
All I need is my poetic power and in a breath, I'm there.
First, I'll visit Io, with its strange volcanoes
As I neared , I could see its size, a bit smaller than our moon.
It cast a spherical shadow on Jupiter's clouds , far, far down below.
A strange and awesome sight it was, and bright,
the color of brassey yellow.
I landed on a level plain with hills on the distant horizons.
There was only frozen sulfur flakes that covered all the ground,
I approached an erupting volcano
and I could feel the change in heat
for in other places the temperature was as cold as minus one-eight-five.
It was erupting molten sulfur that rolled out onto the plain
and spewed a vapor into the sky that froze to sulfur rain.
and caused a storm of yellow snow that drifted down below.
I went down below into the mantle of sodium and melted sulfur
that covered all the inner core
of silicates and potassium and iron.
There was no life at all on Io, nor had there ever been.
Just a cold and yellow ball of sulfur
left when forming up the system.
PART 2
I saw a few impact craters but not as old as on our moon
For all the ancient craters had disappeared
into the frozen spongy surface.
The lines and strips I saw were cracks along the frozen water crust.
I went down into the chasm cracks and deep into the water ice below.
And the sun shown bright down through all the cracks
and light was there to see.
Into this buried ocean I searched throughout for signs of life.
Just near the cracks where misty light bloomed out,
the water was twenty degrees,
I found a bit of organic stuff, slimy and colored green.
With my mind, I probed the growth to see if it was living
and then I felt the tingle of life, a tremble;
Not much to see but there it was, just drifting there about,
just floating in the water.
Could this small bit of gooey slime become a complex being?
Perhaps in a few more million years,
it would grow some arms and legs.
For that's how life begins, a few cells,
some light, water and some chemicals.
Then I moved out further, and there above the water ocean
about thirty miles in height, just below the solid ice
of the luminous surface crust
was a vast expanse of atmosphere, and rippling water
as far as I could see.
And there was oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and some hydrogen.
All the things to make a world
of breathing moving, living things.
I'll come back later, some other time and look for primitive life.
Perhaps there's something there that's more advanced
that could even talk to me.
PART 3
About the size of the planet Mercury and made of one-half water ice,
There was no atmosphere on either moon
and they're cold as minus one-one-zero.
I could see that both were filled with craters,
as old as the solar system.
There's been no change upon these moons
since first they formed of dust and gas.
The expanse of ice is an awesome scene and stretches out forever
Beneath the crust, I ventured down on both the iced packed moons.
There was only ice for miles beneath, and not a degree of warmth.
There was no life upon these moons
nor would there ever be.
---William Orr---
Image Credits: NASA Galileo and Voyager images.
I think I'll visit the moons of Jupiter, those mystic frozen worlds.
that look like odd sink holes.
a yellow expanse of the crusty stuff without a stirring breeze,
for there was no atmosphere with oxygen
and the other gas we breath.
Next I visited Europa, smaller still than Io but somewhat not so dense
with its light brown surface and
white-like patches some would say are mesas,
it was marked with random streaky stripes
that covered all the surface;
there is no end to the different forms in the universe of matter.
The deeper I went, the warmer it was until
finally there was liquid water.
there was something here alive.
Then I moved out further away from planet Jupiter
to Ganymede and Callisto
Just blue and white with meteorite dust covering here and there.
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