Aboard his interstellar craft,
Calvin, for that was his name,
Hurtled through the galaxy,
At speeds that light was yet to gain.
He knew not just what he would find,
For none had ever roamed this far.
The most intrepid of his kind,
He loved and studied every star.
The Universe, it awed him,
And though he wasn't one to boast,
It's one thing, seen from solid ground,
But so much better seen up close.
Nebulae like sunsets,
Novae like great fireworks,
The vastness and variety,
A place where every wonder lurks.
Then Calvin saw away ahead,
A star much brighter than the norm.
He set course for it right away,
And hoped to catch a solar storm.
But as he neared he spotted that,
Which from afar he had not seen.
A rocky ball in orbit had,
A funny shade of blue and green.
Most planets were just rocks or gas.
The stuff that's left when stars are made.
But this one wasn't like the rest.
The star could wait. A course was laid.
Calvin sat there gobsmacked,
He'd never in his wildest dreams,
Believed he'd find a planet,
Where life abounds and oceans gleam.
He zoomed in close and scanned around,
He truly was transfixed,
There were single cells to giant trees,
And everything betwixt.
From lumbering and leathery,
To fluid and tentacular.
Life like nowhere he had been,
Its every form spectacular.
His hungry gaze went roving on,
When a settlement he spied.
He knew it meant intelligence,
And at that thought he nearly cried.
He thought back to his homeworld,
The one they'd all abandoned,
Perhaps it once had looked like this,
Not a sad polluted wasteland.
He looked back at the settlement.
He hoped they sensed how rare,
The planet that it stood on was,
And treated it with love and care.
Calvin felt a pang of shame.
His people turned his world to muck.
He hoped this one would not be spoiled,
And in that task he wished them luck.