Here I stand on a rock third from our sun,

a tiny speck turning within the Milky Way’s slow spiral whirl,

My gaze pierces through the night,

To a star in another spiral galaxy; Andromeda, 

A light so old it began its journey

When dinosaurs walked our planet

 

I wonder if, on some world

Third from that star another being lifts their eyes,

Not human, not known, but sentient,

Also burdened by the same questions as my thoughts tonight.

 

We are divided by millions of years,

by unimaginable distance, yet perhaps united,

By the simple act of looking up and wondering, imagining, dreaming.

 

For what is existence,

if not the search for meaning

in patterns too vast to behold 

and the recognition that even across vast emptiness, life seeks a mirror.

 

If they are there,

then we are alike already:

two minds, questioning in the dark,

turning toward the infinite

and finding each other in wonder and imagination.