Oumuamua

Around this time last year, the solar system's first observed interstellar object came into the view of astronomers atop a Hawaiian volcano. They were able to determine that the object originated outside our solar system. There is an air of mystery to this "exotic" object (named Oumaumau, meaning "scout"), as it behaves oddly, has a unique cylindrical shape, and tumbles, rather than glides, through space, something which I find incredibly violent and obscene. When reading the article I was struck by a certain phrase, that the object could be a "shard of a planet" that broke off when a planet was destroyed via proximity to a dying star. It resonated with me in a way I really can't explain, the only thing is that it recalled certain similar lines from Shakespeare's Coriolanus, in which the main character, Coriolanus, is described in battle hitting a city with such force "like a planet":

from face to foot
He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
Was timed with dying cries: alone he enter'd
the mortal gate of the city, which he painted
with shunless destiny; aidless came off,
And with sudden reinforcement struck
Corioli like a planet.

II.ii

I can't help think, also, of the final scene of Melancholia, in which an interstellar planet collides with Earth. These planetary images are so haunting and resonant I think because they are true visions of our apocalypse. No whore of Babylon, no horsemen. Just the random violence of space. What better subject for a poem?


Oumaumau

After the blast,
who knows how long it took.
A shard of a planet
Hit by a mutinous Roman sun
liquidated
or cracked open like an egg
at Sunday brunch.
As we calm our children
You hurl yourself onward, an unnatural conquistador,
How can you be our first?
We live in isolation that is too dark to fathom. Your
chaos is the only truth we have while we await
our own arable collapse.