We come to life cradled
In deep star-choked dark
Resplendent lullabies of tinny echoes
Murmured dulcet notes of folk song
Only half remembered.

Our mothers, the humans,
Our mothers, the machines
All of them gathered close around the nursery
Telling tales of the S/S Orpheus
Not a steamship but a generation spaceship
Not a parent unit but an infinity system of love.
Life is suffering, children, they sing,
Life is suffering but once we got on the Orpheus
We never once looked back.

We go to sleep again
Suckling on skin and silicone
As we hurtle through the cosmos
Our hands reaching out of our cribs
To close around the fingers
Of our mothers, the humans,
Our mothers, the machines,
All our family made of stars.