Gliese 581 G Poem by Paul Butters

We’ve found a planet which may be like our own,
About twenty light years away.
It orbits round a yellow dwarf,
In what we call it’s temperate zone,
Neither too hot nor too cold
For Life.
It’s maybe half the mass of ours,
But that’s enough for water
And an atmosphere.
This planet is oddly tilted,
And it revolves on its axis over three hundred times
On each occasion it orbits its sun.
For a viewer on its ground,
That yellow sun will speed across the sky
To vanish over the horizon,
Over and over again.
With such drastic changes in sunlight and temperature,
We doubt life can thrive there…

But wait, more news!
There is a radio broadcast from there too.
They have found us.
Well, our world at least:
They call us Gliese 581 g,
Their own world: Earth.
Television has been intercepted too.
They are nice meaty bipeds.
Our invasion fleet is already
Being prepared.

© PB Humberside, Monday 4th October,2010 at 21.50.