The shadow-man-outside-the-airlock,
in our sleep, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â walks outside our cave.
He shuffles, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â scrapes dead sticks,
pretends to be the wind, pretends
to be other                    than our dim selves –
glitch in our evolved mindware.
The man-creature-outside-the-airlock,
spider-eyed, Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â dressed in bones,
alien                                in the flesh,
glowers, growls, and shakes a graven stick.
We have come               to meet him.
Yet our shadow infests us.
Bogeymen still bewilder
us starmen. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â It is hard,
amidst our familiar ghosts,
to assay the alien,
to hear the voice          above the wind.
Eyes open, open the door.
illustration from Stories of Beowulf by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall, 1908
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