How’s It Going Here?

Forty-six years and one half
Of a light-hour away now,
Voyager’s been stuttering

Repetitive loops of code
Its team is hoping to fix.
Meanwhile, the prospects for life

On the moon Enceladus
Keep getting more promising—
All the key ingredients.

Two years ago this Christmas
Earth launched the Webb telescope.
It’s been doing very well—

More galaxies discovered,
More planets identified,
More oddities, more questions.

Sometimes, it’s like there’s two plots
To this postmodern novel—
The one in which a species

And its machinery take
Unsteady steps into space,
As if they are growing up

And becoming more aware,
And the other in which, well,
You know how it’s going here.