We Must Believe the Road Ahead is Full of Light by Lisa Timpf

2021 October | Utopia Science Fiction Magazine

There’s an old story about a farmer and two travellers

and how our expectations color what we see

and maybe that applies to the future, too,

so I try to imagine a friendly one peopled,

not with Alien aliens, but gentler ones,

with whom we might walk hand in hand. I imagine

the future as a broader place, where new frontiers

have opened up, and you can visit the thriving

colony on Mars, or travel off to Titan or Thestias,

Ganymede or Ggantija, or choose to live out among

the wild stars. In this future, humans will be welcomed

into the arms or tentacles of the Confederacy or Commonwealth

or whatever they call themselves, our galactic

counterparts, our new brothers and sisters, and

we’ll have learned by then to forego blowing

one another up, to look out past our own skies

toward a wondrous and unfathomably vast universe

full of possibilities, and work together to get there.

If we dare to dream, it carves a place for hope to go.

If we believe, perhaps we’ll find the will to make it so.

​END​

Originally published in the October 2021 issue of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine.

Lisa Timpf is a retired HR and communications professional who lives in Simcoe, Ontario. Her poetry has appeared in New Myths, Star*Line, Polar Borealis, Liminality, and other venues. You can find out more about Lisa’s writing at http://lisatimpf.blogspot.com/.