The Star Dreamers

by Bruce Boston

 

 

They froze us instantaneously
for our journey to the stars.
They stacked us tier on tier
in the darkness of the hold.
While generations passed
on the world we left behind
we would age a single day
and know a senseless night,
and then we would awaken
with our youth still at hand.

They said we could not dream,
but oh they were so wrong.
We dreamed a million dreams
in a thousand years of sleep.
We lived without existing
in the landscapes of our minds,
while the silent parsecs passed
and our starship traveled on
to find some world to conquer
where new life could abound.

At last our coffins cracked
and our wintry eyelids thawed.
Our bodies slowly warmed yet
our brains still held a chill.
Our mirrors reflected youth,
unblemished and pristine,
but mirrors can surely lie:
we were wrinkled deep within.
Far more than supple limbs,
youth dwells within the mind.

Now that we've awakened
to confront a waiting world,
we balk at the adventure,
we have spent the urge to try.
We have dreamed so many
lies that our appetite for life
has lost its cutting edge and
been ground down by time.
Dreams are less than real
yet their sum can fill the years.

Beneath a distant saffron sun
that will offer little heat,
we let the steam from our cups
rise against our downy cheeks.
If we plan to survive there
are tasks we should define.
Instead we sit and barter
tales of lives we never lived,
of worlds we never conquered
and things we never did.