life spills out
into uncontrolled
spaces—still
mystery,
still yearning for parallel
growth, revelation—

who and where
do we think we are?
tiny ex
plosions look
ing for intersecting lines
that collide and cross,

waving brains
tides hands energy
electric
magnetic–
mapping the unseen
with disturbances,

promises
of what could have been–
had lighyears
been compressed
into overlapping sounds—each
a mirrored reply

Marcy Erb’s prompt for the Kick-About #11 was the planet Trappist 1e, an earth-sized planet orbiting the Trappist-1 dwarf star 40 light years from Earth.  What makes it special?  Scientists believe it is potentially habitable.

But not the entire planet–“there would be only a sliver of habitability”–as the planet does not itself rotate–one side is always facing towards the sun, and the other side is always in darkness.  The habitable area is called the teminator line, or in more familiar terms, the twilight zone, as it is always stranded between the darkness and the light.

The idea of a sliver of habitability seems relevant to the current situation on earth–the balance of the ecosystem is delicate, and we are narrowing that sliver day by day.  My two mandalas represent my idea of Trappist 1e and the waves of exploration and communication we are sending out in the hopes of finding another blue and green island in the vast dark cosmic sea.