I wonder if anything lives down there,
maybe life’s started up again.
I wonder if something can breathe acid air,
or perhaps it’s dead; just the same.

Through my porthole I see it suspended.
Did our ancestors really work there and play
and feed their children. Their lives depended
on fresh air, now diminished, faded away.

Behind us now our space station recedes
to join its neighbouring stars.
To think man could do as he should please.
It’s a story only heard of in bars.

We struggle into our clumsy suits.
It’s dangerous for us down there.
For radioactive protection we’ve special boots
and masks and gloves we must wear.

The cabin now fills with an excitable hum,
as we draw nearer to old mother Earth.
A planet destroyed by rays from the sun.
It was fated right from man’s birth.

A yellow smog surrounds our bus
as it glides through poisoned air.
And a question which goes through all of us;
Does anything live down there?