In the Days of the Green Comet
(February, 2023)
A green-tailed comet’s in the sky tonight;
Neanderthals and cats with sabre teeth
were last to see it glistening this bright.
But neither now is wandering beneath
this ice-and-dust phenomenon whose head
bedazzles as it closes on the sun.
When next it visits, will Mankind be dead,
his planetary annihilation done?
Or will we have migrated to the stars
to start afresh from failure? Or will Earth
be habitable still, with planes and cars
and humankind sustained with every birth?
Exploiters or custodians, our place
is touch-and-go in cosmic time and space.
The above poem won Second Honorable Mention in the 2025 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest.
Paul A. Freeman is the author of Rumours of Ophir, a crime novel which was taught in Zimbabwean high schools and has been translated into German. In addition to having two novels, a children’s book and an 18,000-word narrative poem (Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers!) commercially published, Paul is the author of hundreds of published short stories, poems and articles.
Very clever, Paul. I like the way you capture the vast sweep of cosmic time and, in doing so, put mankind in its proper perspective.
Thanks, Martin. Sometimes, as a species, we lose perspective.
Thank you, Paul, for this vividly expressed and thought-provoking sonnet. I especially like the evocative reference to prehistory in lines 2-4, the effective use of hyphens in lines 5 and 14 and the stark choice of ‘exploiters or custodians’ in line 13. I’m not surprised your poem was honourably mentioned! Best wishes, Bruce
Thank you for reading and commenting, Bruce. Unfortunately, ‘exploiters or custodians’ seems an ever starker choice by the day, but Mankind has muddled through so far, so who knows.
Congrats on the contest win for this thought-provoking and well-constructed sonnet, Paul!
Thank you, Theresa.
Admirable clarity, Paul. The rhyme scheme is Shakespearean, but the sonnet is proportionately upside down, starting with a sestet. That’s where you picture present and past in two three-line sentences. Then you move to another sestet of three questions. I notice that Mankind is capitalized in the first question, while habitable Earth is capitalized in the last, where “humankind” uncapitalized takes a desirable place “sustained with every birth.” To me, that implies being pro-life about humanity and environment, which is our preferable option. The couplet, though, recalls our touch-and-go place in the universe, where many factors involving life (sunspot violence, cosmic collisions) have little to do with our actions. The thought is sobering when we think in the comet’s time scheme.
I’ve returned to this topic of Mankind’s future in cosmic terms, quite a lot, Margaret, both in prose and poetry. The title of the piece refers to an HG Wells novel, one of his not-so-well-received later novels, where a green comet appears in the sky and humanity embraces love and peace. The book reflected Wells’ dejection with humanity in general, and its propensity for war, especially. I wrote it when a green comet was suddenly noted in the night sky.
Thanks for your thoughtful (as always) observations.
Paul
Such a well-crafted sonnet: the judges of the international contest have a good eye for sonnet excellence.
The comet is described lyrically “ice-and-dust phenomenon whose head bedazzles as it closes on the sun.” Its last sighting (from earth) is captured poetically—rather than 50,000 years, the narrator references two of the earth’s now-extinct species. Then, the three interesting questions with possibilities: in 50,000 years when next the comet visits, where will mankind be?
The conclusion (g-g couplet) is satisfying: yes, humans can be seen as “exploiters or custodians”, and yes, our situation (like all life!) is tenuous. Meanwhile, the comet is seemingly an “unchanging” entity on a fixed orbit (though from the pov of the larger cosmos, of course that isn’t true either).
Here’s another quixotic possibility: in 50,000 years will our “tame” (sort-of, as long as they get their way) feline pets have morphed back into fearsome sabre-tooth tigers, and/or will we go “backward” (from a homo sapiens point of view) into Neanderthal-like species? Note that humans of European descent typically have about 2 percent Neanderthal genes!
Most sincerely
Mary Jane
Thanks for taking the time to comment so thoroughly, Mary Jane. I did actually write a sonnet about a universal regression, with the cosmos folding in on itself and time running backwards. Your idea, however, is enticing, with some obscure creature becoming predominant, and mankind being relegated to an evolutionary also-ran.