THE SKY IS NOT THE LIMIT

A poetic envoy from the Voyager 2 probe as it leaves our solar system for the vast deeps of interstellar space.

“Behind me, Earth. // Ahead of me lies the night.” In lines so terse that twin probe Voyager 1 goes unmentioned until his (somewhat) more expansive afterword, Decalf recalls his personified spacecraft’s assembly, launch, and flybys of all four outer planets on the way to the stars—bearing a golden disk of “images from Earth, and some melodies” in hopes of “an encounter, perhaps, / at the edge of night. // With some new friends?” Early scenes of silhouetted human watchers and workers quickly give way to starry backdrops in which, except for planets flashing by, the small knot of instruments and antennas floats, recedes, and at last appears as a shadow against a swirling nebula. Though sandwiched between schematic views of the solar system and of Voyager’s course, this work—translated from French by the author—has little to offer readers curious about the actual mission or its achievements, not to mention the contents of that recorded message, until the quick summary at the end. But some sense of outer space’s immensity and loneliness does come through. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Slight but evocative.