MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off later this month, it'll be headed for Jupiter's fourth-largest moon, Europa. That is a voyage of 1.8 billion miles towards an icy moon, searching for conditions suitable for life. Well, onboard will be scientific and technical gear and also a poem, and that is where U.S. poet laureate Ada Limon comes in. Ada Limon, welcome.
ADA LIMON: Thank you so much for having me.
KELLY: So there is a poem engraved on this spaceship - it is yours. It's titled "In Praise Of Mystery." And we're going to hear it in a minute, but I want to first hear the story. It was specially commissioned by whom? When? How did this come about?
LIMON: Yes, I was actually at the Library of Congress when we got the invitation from NASA, and I have always been a fan of stars. You know, poets are always a fan of stars...
KELLY: Yeah.
LIMON: ...And planets and moons. And I immediately said yes, and then, of course, panicked that I would actually have to write the poem.
KELLY: (Laughter).
LIMON: And I had this, you know, one minute of absolute elation at the possibility, and then, you know, a dreadful, dreadful return to Earth about the practicality of trying to write something that would go along with this incredible mission.
KELLY: Yeah - be worthy of being out there in the stars.
LIMON: Yeah.
KELLY: Yeah. And I suppose, too, usually, when you're writing a poem, you're going to put it out into the world soon. This had to be a poem with staying power because, I gather, even if everything goes fabulously to plan, the Clipper won't enter Jupiter's orbit until 2030, by which point who knows what may have happened back here on planet Earth.
LIMON: Yeah, it's a really fascinating experience to be writing a poem but also processing future time. I'm someone that tries very much to live in the present and to think about what will happen in - you know, in the approximately six years it will take to reach the orbit. I feel it's easy to get lost in the possibilities of where we might be in six years.
KELLY: Yeah, yeah. I suppose you also usually know who your audience will be. It'll be, you know, people here on Earth. And without getting into who knows what alien life is out there, but the thought of putting it out so many billions of miles - I wonder how you go about thinking about that.
LIMON: Yeah, I think for that experience, I really had to delve in, again, to the idea of who we are here on this Earth, and I wanted to point to the best of us. And as we know, that's not always easy to do, but that was really what I wanted to do, which was to lean on what I see as some of our best intentions and who we are at our most decent human core.
KELLY: Have you actually gotten to see it etched on the spacecraft?
LIMON: I didn't get to see it etched on the spacecraft, but I did get to see the vault plate itself. It's etched in my own handwriting...
KELLY: Ah.
LIMON: Which adds to this element of the human endeavor of the poem and the mission. And so I did get to see it, and I am laughing that I tried to touch it. And, you know, NASA doesn't like you to touch things. This is what I've learned.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: I want to ask about the book because you are putting the poem out here on Earth in the form of a children's book. It is illustrated by Caldecott Honor winner Peter Sis. As a poet, is that the first time you have had a book of yours illustrated?
LIMON: It is. It's the first picture book that I will have, and I've been sort of blown away by this collaboration. Peter Sis is just a marvel. And when he sent back the images, I just gasped because it felt like he was in my mind, in my imagination. As soon as I saw them, I was really moved to tears. And partly, it was - if you read my work, you'll know that I'm obsessed with trees. And in the pages, there's one moment where all of these drops of water are falling, and inside each of the drops there's a tree.
KELLY: Well, the images are beautiful. They, in my mind, reminded me of a Van Gogh - very Starry Night-looking - swirls...
LIMON: Absolutely.
KELLY: ...Of blue and gorgeous.
Ada Limon, without further ado, would you read it to us?
LIMON: I'd be happy to.
(Reading) "In Praise Of Mystery" - arching under the night sky, inky with black expansiveness, we point to the planets we know. We pin quick wishes on stars. From Earth, we read the sky as if it is an unerring book of the universe, expert and evident. Still, there are mysteries below our sky - the whale song, the songbird singing its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree. We are creatures of constant awe - curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow. And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of space, but the offering of water. Each drop of rain, each rivulet, each pulse, each vein, oh, second moon, we too are made of water, of vast and beckoning seas. We too are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves, of small, invisible worlds, of a need to call out through the dark.
KELLY: Ada Limon, thank you.
LIMON: Thank you.
KELLY: Ada Limon is the United States poet laureate. Her poem, "In Praise Of Mystery, " is etched on the NASA spacecraft headed for Jupiter's Moon, Europa.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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