c
see what you have done to us
we are so far away from home
we want to tell them what we've done

and c
see what you have done to us
we are a people far from people
and our people want to run

c
see what you have done to us
you are infusing us with fear
while we explore this new frontier

and c
see what you have done to us
you've taken everyone and everything
and made them disappear

back home, of course
all they know is that fifty years ago
we were still fifty years away
and still inbound

another fifty years
when you elect to let them know
and they begin to plan a rescue
we'll be long since in the ground

the same, applied inverted
we have families on earth
that we are fifty years away from
they have death where we see birth

and for those of them that loved the ones
who perished in the fall
it was already far too late
for death had long since claimed them all

you're fast
but you're not fast enough
to get us out this mess

yes you are fast
but just not fast enough
to send our SOS

and in the meantime
we will do our best
surviving in this land
and we will ask, in vain, of terra
send us help
this was not planned

effectively impossible
to live to hear replies
we would be isolated anyway
a century denies

for as we wait for the response
that will eventually arrive
we are still fighting for survival
we still fight to stay alive

back home we took for granted
the irrelevance of petty things like c
but now it matters
it's amazing how important it can be

you are the straw
you are the final complication
and the worst
you are nine
and we are cursed

(we're stuck here so)
we want to tell our homeworld
of our peril and our plight
but we have to sit and wait here
while you tiptoe through the night
there's creatures here that want to tear us
limb from twitching limb
and we are frightened both of them
and of the anarchy within
they told us that the first arrivals
always have it tough
so while we knew it would be taxing
what is left is not enough