Stolen from their glaciers, lava fields
their mossy apartments
scooped from river beds
oceanic condominiums demolished
flightless family members
now flying lunatics, orbiters
non-consensual émigrés

ambassadors in moon shadow

Oh, say who will see tiny tardigrades
kidnapped moss piglets
water bears who can live without water
cryptobiotic grandmothers sealed
away in microcosmic casks
who wait out deadly tipping points
flame, ice, desiccation

microbial committees may offer welcome

a dromenon of salutation
floating in potassium gases
the thanksgiving ritual for uninvited guests
this living contraband
smuggled to the flip side
claims lunate territory

radio images eclipse unlettered histories

not issued space-faring passports, spirulina Babičkas,
cannot settle luna’s fields
where ice cap H2O floats and
transplanted moonwalkers breed the next generation       
bloat beyond their capsules       
consume their tardigrade grannies       
no postcards sent home

algae does not bloom among cracked dust

   These lung-less colonizers
bring their own mores
whoops, caws, warbles, peeps, cheeps
do not hover here        
no music played by stunted feet to an           
ever present beat of solar wind         

dust conducts its own orchestra

as tardigrades burrow to below surface lakes         
rehydrate from their desiccated comas       
roll in detritus left by human footprints          
suck DNA leftovers          
will they write memoirs of the moon?        

stratospheric answers unravel

Gaia’s silenced Po'o-uli,
the strangled Alaotra Grebe left no transcriptions 
their dried out DNA now fragments
            their voices stolen, stifled in
            a quark net question

this atmosphere knows no hollow eggs

will water bear mothers tell their hatchlings
myths of squirrel mischief? sequoia epics?
Sing lichen lullabies?
or hum sodium atom tunes in
a lunar vacuum as their
podgy eight-legged granddaughters author
elegies for frogs