Sinead Morrissey

This planet, this cloudy planet, is the earth. 
We cannot guess how flawed and insignificant it is
unless we travel, in our imaginations, to another star -
to another stone-pocked sphere without atmosphere
where an orderly people, curious and conciliatory,
stares out across the vast and silent territory
of intergalactic space, dreaming of otherness...

                                                    from 'The Clangers'