An Alien Sends Home A Survey of the West
by Antoinette Luu
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
— Albert Einstein
After ‘A Martian Sends a Postcard Home’ by Craig Raine
Humans go cloud watching to practise the art
of seeing that which is vapour as solid; they remark
that one’s a bunny, no, an elephant, a shark.
Once a year, gifts are sought in the hope of
(but are really bought in the name of)
a saint stuck in a chimney.
The humans write their wishes into the smoke of
their flaming cake, their wishes wilful enough to emboss
into air. A pen is a tool that mobilises thought
like when they crack the v-shaped bone
from the sternum of a turkey
into two pens to mobilise one wish.
They also wish upon the trail of pressurised rock
that we call our home planet—
does that make us their god?
Their youth toss the copper face of their monarch
into a fountain of fish. She spirals down like a question mark.
A homeless man collects their wishes when it’s dark.
My fellow alien,
those who pray to a wisp of smoke or a santa
a sternum or a star
or a five cent Elizabeth tossed amongst the koi—
those humans cannot fathom the others of their kind
who hold their hands to the same H₂O sky
and utter Buddha, Vishnu, Allah
those who immolate the wax on their cake
cannot sympathise with others outside the embassy
call it pointless when they incense themselves
like candlesticks
because the fires won’t cease elsewhere
because elsewhere-youth wish upon food deliveries, immobilised,
as they go plume-watching and remark
that one’s a plane, no, a bomb, where is Ma?
My fellow alien,
if they cannot understand each other
then they are not ready for us either.