Minerva: Next Contact

Minerva: Next Contact

My spidercam has found intelligent
life is a more difficult question
than an answer

I launch a swarm
of curious robots
to whisper in alien

algorithms that test
Drake’s Equation of deliberate
fractions for the right planet

at the right time, burbling
in signatures of gold dust
gas and sodium. Do they

recall that Cambrian Explosion
that made predation an art
and evolution our paintbrush?

Should we scramble our radio
signals to camouflage false icons
like the Gorgon3 or emerging

extinctions? My robots bleep
‘no’. We are here to discover
not to be disrobed.