The slow crossing

Hull is scarred with silent dust, Engines hum a tune of rust. Three thousand souls in frozen sleep, While I am here — the watch I keep. The screens all glow with pale blue light, The Earth's a ghost now, out of sight. We left behind the wars and waves, Now heading for the silent graves Of gods we never got to meet — Just one more star, one fragile street. And she flies — this ark of steel and bone, Through the dark, through the cold, through the great unknown. To another star, to a nameless shore, Where we've never been, but we still want more. The oxygen tastes like yesterday's fear, But we've got ten thousand more years to steer. And the hum of the core is a lullaby low — «Don't wake them yet. Let the dreamers go.» Year fifty-three. The milk run’s smooth. The artificial dusk won't move. I saw a light that shouldn't be — A flare where no star has to be. The logbook says: «Ignore. Proceed.» But something in that signal bleeds. Maybe it's hope, maybe it's lie — I'll keep it quiet, let it die. One wrong thought can break the sane, And we've got light-years left of chain. And she flies — this cathedral of the void, Where the lonely are never truly paranoid. To another sun, to an alien sea, Where the ghosts of Earth might finally be free. The recyclers hum, the water tastes old, But the cryo-pods keep their stories cold. And the captain's log says: «All is well» — But the hull's still singing its private hell. What if we land, and there's nothing but dust? What if the new world has already lost its trust? What if the star is just a dying coal — A mirror to the one we stole? But the course is set. No turning back. The engines burn the zodiac. We are seeds. We are scars. We are last of the line. And the new planet waits — or it doesn't. Either is fine.