you will never stop searching

even when they tell you it is a lost cause

even when they say they are so sorry
budget cuts
there just isn’t the money
the public buy in

even when all the lights have been
shut off and the the computers repoed
and the coffee grounds sit molding
in their filters
forgotten

you will continue your work

you will enter data
and research probabilities

you will lift up every rug
and every floorboard of space

they say
he is in his own little world

an alien
of some driftwood planet

they beg you to understand

there are so many galaxies

you are just one person
you cannot possibly expect
to reach him

but

you will walk as many moons as it takes

you will spin along the rings of every
red and cold planet

you will spend infinity among the stars
breaking down molecule by molecule
until you are only dust
and particles

if that’s what god asks of you

but you will find him

and you will bring him home