Month:
Splashdown beneath the afternoon sun. Starship like a dagger rising from the water's surface, an ivory shard pointing back upward to the sky. Foam dissolves to mist around the craft, spiraling from the surface in long, graceful arcs. The hatch blasts open and a figure emerges. Home at last. Echoes of music float on a calm sea breeze.
Landing on the Martian surface, you could see the dome city on the horizon, just past the river's flow. On a warm current of wind, the words of the song could be felt (and heard):
Expand your mind to understand
we all must live in peace today.
Extend your hand to help the plan
of love to all mankind.
Lonnie Liston Smith1
After creeping back into the solar system over a week ago, I spent the weekend on Mars. Collecting assorted records that I'd stashed in my spot, I loaded them onto the starship (We must get the minerals to the ship.) where they shared shelf space with the recent field recordings brought back from the outer rim. Cosmic echoes. The results of this five month journey, the treasures of the vast beyond, all gathered in one place within the depths of Starship Parallax. And thus embarking on that last stretch of skyway, and the journey home...
Smith, Lonnie Liston and The Cosmic Echoes. Expansions. Expansions. Smith, Lonnie Liston. Flying Dutchman, 1975. Vinyl. |
Solar systems coexisting with our own.
Fourteen planets making the solar system alone.
All the lifeforms and all the people making this planet a home.
I call it independent-interdependent relationship.
So while this is all there is,
there is no place left to go
in our lifetime.
Will the rockets find us another home in time?
Will the scientists find the way to report our damage done?
The politicians sounding like the Lewis Carrol poem,
and in this darkness I appreciate I'm not all alone.
So while this is all there is,
there is no place left to go
in our lifetime.
Now I'm gonna say what you really want to hear:
Let's have a good time!
Let's boogie...
and party
because...
So while this is all there is,
there is no place left to go
in our lifetime.
Annette Peacock1
Peacock, Annette. Solar Systems. The Perfect Release. Peacock, Annette. Aura, 1979. Vinyl. |