You brought your grievance to the Earth,
so far from the world of your birth.
We had not known, we did not see;
we needed land we thought it free.
We had the strictest of guidelines;
we scanned the spectrum, searched for signs;
through telescopes quartered the ground,
but there was nothing to be found.
We could not conceive of your like;
you did not seem to us to be life.
How could we know? We could not see -
blinded by virgin territory.
Shooting stars, we fell from orbit,
scorching the earth where our jets hit,
killing so many we later learned:
rockets’ red glare slaughtered and burned.
We left once we knew, though we said
sorry it can’t bring back the dead.
We most humbly apologise,
but must your answer be genocide?
