A Selection of Centauran Poetry

A Selection of Centauran Songs and Poetry

Centauran Haiku

Viewed through atmosphere,
The stars dance on yellow dusk:
All new to your eyes.

-Xavier Nettle, to one year-old Soris WWright, firstborn of the Empire, upon Centauran planetfall, N.C.E. 3

So sad, redworld tree!
Your first sheltering branch, so
Young when I am dust.

-Xavier Nettle, before his death, N.C.EE. 8 [*]

A garden of names;
I did not mean to trespass,
Yet so glad I did.

-Alan O. Weil, upon his marriage to thee Amethyst Princess of House Stel, N.C.E. 55.

Curved knives of ruby,
Do not try to search them out--
The smiles of the Stel.

-Ishmael David Alleghi, after escaping to Masada, N.C.E. 74

This blue dusted plane,
Drinking your blood, will return
An amethyst sea.

-Amyr Fendry, upon the unification of tthe Meccan colonies, N.C.E. 119

Harvest moons rising
Over low clouds of ligure
Bare our urgent need.

-unknown, from the Ligure Mist perfume advertising campaign, copyright N.C.E. 167 by Naisson Cosmetics Co., Ltd.

Brown soil gone yellow
We too, the Redwold pollen
Spring from Nettle's grave.

-Thomas Stel, upon the Bicentenniary, NN.C.E. 200

[*] The first tree to take root on Centauran soil was a redwood planted shortly after planetfall. Malnourished in the artificially fertilized, alien soil, it died in N.C.E. 15, dashing the hopes of those who wanted it to endure as a symbol of the Empire. By N.C.E. 200, however, hundreds of miles of forest had sprung from the land where it fell.