Poem: "A Darkness in the Sky"
Mar. 26th, 2026 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the March 17, 2026 Bonus Fishbowl. It was inspired by a discussion with roughentumble. It also fills the "Stone" square in my 3-1-26 card for the National Crafting Month Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles.
"A Darkness in the Sky"
At the center of the solar system
was not a star but a black hole.
It was not a source of light,
but rather it swallowed all light.
Even gravity bent around it,
rippling everything like a lens.
Yet there were planets.
Nine there were, and
two asteroid belts, and
hundreds of moons.
Though there was
no light but that of
the yonder stars,
the push and pull
of gravity made
some of the planets
and moons volcanic.
They heaved and surged,
some with lava bursting
through a stony crust,
others with liquid water
spewing through ice.
Other heavenly bodies
seethed and stewed with
all sorts of chemicals.
A darkness in the sky
empowered all of this
in its own way, even
though it was not a sun.
This was a harsh place,
steeped in its own ways.
Yet there was life.
On volcanic worlds,
extremophiles arose
that lived in solid rock or
boiling, sulfurous springs.
Small, armored creatures
crawled on the surface when
not too many volcanoes
were erupting at the time,
guided by senses for
heat and vibrations.
Other worlds were cold,
clad in ice that defended
their liquid layers from space.
In the darkness below, life
swam and glimmered
with bioluminescence.
It was guided mostly
by smell and taste,
water pressure and
electroreception, but
still it had eyes to see
the meaningful sparks.
Then there were the worlds
with a chemical ecosystem,
based on methane, ethane,
silicon, or even ammonia.
Their organisms clustered
around the places where
useful substances bubbled
up from deep beneath.
Each of them was unique,
with its own strange creatures
carving out niches for themselves.
One was even a cave-world
where blind creatures found
their way entirely by touch.
And then the humans came.
Their colony ship crashed on
an iceworld, so at least they
had water, but that was about it.
They burrowed into the ice, and
the rare outcroppings of stone.
They built domes on the surface
and lit them with portable "suns" and
filled them with special equipment
to fight the inexorable cold.
In these protected places,
they grew their own food.
Where they found rock,
they found gems too --
quartzes, garnets, spinels,
and even the rare diamonds.
These they carved into jewelry
and tiny statuettes, instilling
meaning into their crafts.
Even though it was not
what they had intended,
the humans made a home for
themselves and called it Cryos.
In time, they even learned
to love the desolate place that
was, actually, very beautiful
in its own unyielding way --
especially when they looked up
to admire a darkness in the sky.
* * *
Notes:
The possibility of life-forms being based on "alternative" biochemistries is the topic of an ongoing scientific discussion, informed by what is known about extraterrestrial environments and about the chemical behaviour of various elements and compounds. It is of interest in synthetic biology and is also a common subject in science fiction.
The element silicon has been much discussed as a hypothetical alternative to carbon. Silicon is in the same group as carbon on the periodic table and, like carbon, it is tetravalent. Hypothetical alternatives to water include ammonia, which, like water, is a polar molecule, and cosmically abundant; and non-polar hydrocarbon solvents such as methane and ethane, which are known to exist in liquid form on the surface of Titan.
Gemstones found in igneous rock include the quartzes (including amethyst, citrine and ametrine), the garnets, moonstone, apatite, diamond, spinel, tanzanite, tourmaline, topaz and zircon. Some of these gemstones form in pegmatites and hydrothermal veins that are genetically related to igneous rocks.
roughentumble. It also fills the "Stone" square in my 3-1-26 card for the National Crafting Month Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles."A Darkness in the Sky"
At the center of the solar system
was not a star but a black hole.
It was not a source of light,
but rather it swallowed all light.
Even gravity bent around it,
rippling everything like a lens.
Yet there were planets.
Nine there were, and
two asteroid belts, and
hundreds of moons.
Though there was
no light but that of
the yonder stars,
the push and pull
of gravity made
some of the planets
and moons volcanic.
They heaved and surged,
some with lava bursting
through a stony crust,
others with liquid water
spewing through ice.
Other heavenly bodies
seethed and stewed with
all sorts of chemicals.
A darkness in the sky
empowered all of this
in its own way, even
though it was not a sun.
This was a harsh place,
steeped in its own ways.
Yet there was life.
On volcanic worlds,
extremophiles arose
that lived in solid rock or
boiling, sulfurous springs.
Small, armored creatures
crawled on the surface when
not too many volcanoes
were erupting at the time,
guided by senses for
heat and vibrations.
Other worlds were cold,
clad in ice that defended
their liquid layers from space.
In the darkness below, life
swam and glimmered
with bioluminescence.
It was guided mostly
by smell and taste,
water pressure and
electroreception, but
still it had eyes to see
the meaningful sparks.
Then there were the worlds
with a chemical ecosystem,
based on methane, ethane,
silicon, or even ammonia.
Their organisms clustered
around the places where
useful substances bubbled
up from deep beneath.
Each of them was unique,
with its own strange creatures
carving out niches for themselves.
One was even a cave-world
where blind creatures found
their way entirely by touch.
And then the humans came.
Their colony ship crashed on
an iceworld, so at least they
had water, but that was about it.
They burrowed into the ice, and
the rare outcroppings of stone.
They built domes on the surface
and lit them with portable "suns" and
filled them with special equipment
to fight the inexorable cold.
In these protected places,
they grew their own food.
Where they found rock,
they found gems too --
quartzes, garnets, spinels,
and even the rare diamonds.
These they carved into jewelry
and tiny statuettes, instilling
meaning into their crafts.
Even though it was not
what they had intended,
the humans made a home for
themselves and called it Cryos.
In time, they even learned
to love the desolate place that
was, actually, very beautiful
in its own unyielding way --
especially when they looked up
to admire a darkness in the sky.
* * *
Notes:
The possibility of life-forms being based on "alternative" biochemistries is the topic of an ongoing scientific discussion, informed by what is known about extraterrestrial environments and about the chemical behaviour of various elements and compounds. It is of interest in synthetic biology and is also a common subject in science fiction.
The element silicon has been much discussed as a hypothetical alternative to carbon. Silicon is in the same group as carbon on the periodic table and, like carbon, it is tetravalent. Hypothetical alternatives to water include ammonia, which, like water, is a polar molecule, and cosmically abundant; and non-polar hydrocarbon solvents such as methane and ethane, which are known to exist in liquid form on the surface of Titan.
Gemstones found in igneous rock include the quartzes (including amethyst, citrine and ametrine), the garnets, moonstone, apatite, diamond, spinel, tanzanite, tourmaline, topaz and zircon. Some of these gemstones form in pegmatites and hydrothermal veins that are genetically related to igneous rocks.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-03-27 02:04 am (UTC)Yay!
Date: 2026-03-27 02:13 am (UTC)I miss when science fiction was routinely inspired by new scientific discoveries. So when I see something like that I can use as a prompt, I tend to pounce on it.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-03-27 02:40 am (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2026-03-27 03:16 am (UTC)