Space Is A Mother - Matt Core

Wood
14” x 11” x 1”
 
Space, Time, and Astronomy
by Wendy Thornton
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Oh, you can say that men going into space in their own vehicles are like phallic passages.  You know, old white guys finding young girls, balancing them on their knees, building silos and pseudo-penises to celebrate their once-remembered glory days.
And yes, all that money could go to so many important purposes.  People are starving in the midst of a pandemic. They’re afraid to work, to leave their children alone at home as the schools close, and businesses close and pathways disappear. They live in fear, in the world’s richest country, wondering where their next meal is coming from.
Or the super star money could go to climate change, to help those (this week) in Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California. More? Who can keep track? Hurricanes and floods and fires, oh my! Why would we not want to address this?
But then I think of my children, and then their children, and then their children and the beauty of a million molded conglomerates of humanity, melded into one, with one compulsion – to find a home where all can live peacefully, free of fires and floods and hurricanes, fighting for the right only to be okay.
And there’s a girl out there – she looks a bit like me – though much prettier. She could have picked the orange landing zone circled by rings like those of Saturn, but she liked the green planet better.  She has black hair and eyes so brown they reflect the green-ringed planet discovered on the edge of the solar system which just happened to have water, wind, and solar options. 
She grows crops on the open plains, her long thin fingers digging in the green dirt that just happens to grow food so well; no one knows what it is or how it works. But each day, a new ship comes in and she gives lessons on how to grow food, how to harvest and cook the unique plants that flourish wherever she goes. She is my great-great-however-far-into-the-future grandchild. 
But so much more energetic than me, she likes to leap in the low gravity environment from one tree to another, grabbing the fruit and juggling, showing off for the new citizens.   All are welcome here where the fear of climate catastrophes is just a mere memory of days gone by, mitigated by science, exploration, and the showboating arrogance of some old dead guys.