PLUTO’S COMPLAINT

Pluto was discovered by the astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. It was regarded as the ninth planet in the Solar

System until 2005, when it was downgraded to a planetoid (dwarf planet) by the International Astronomical Union.

You’ll find me way out in the Kuiper Belt.

My mists of frozen methane never melt.
The sun is several billion miles away;
its light arrives with five-plus hours’ delay.
I’m on the edge – remote from Earth or Mars.
A trillion tiny shining diamond stars
are scattered through my black and endless sky.
Sometimes a comet hurtles softly by.

As planets go, you’d say I’m pretty small.

A dwarfish, rocky, slowly spinning ball.
At fourteen hundred miles from side to side
(Or slightly more) I’m just two-thirds as wide
As your own moon. Okay. All right. I’m not
The biggest guy in space, but look, so what?
I have my own attendant satellite:
The moon of Charon shines on me by night.

And eighty-nine of your Earth years ago

(A third of one of mine; my year is slow)
A thing that I had never dared to hope
Came true: a boffin with a telescope
on Earth, alone in his observatory,
explored the Heavens and discovered me.
Oh yes. I joined the club. And it felt sweet
To know that I was one of the elite.
One of the Nine. I joined the company
Of Earth and Venus, and of Mercury,
And Mars – and all those really giant guys,
The mighty Jupiter, of awesome size,
Ringed Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune:
I blessed my great and unexpected fortune.
I took my place amid that heavenly host:
an equal, though indeed the outermost.

Seventy-five years passed, and all was well;

Until at last the fatal thing befell:
Some busy, fussy, interfering prof
Decided that I ought to be struck off.
Demoted. Relegated. Cast aside.
My status as a planet was denied.
That’s sizeist. ‘Giant planets? Fine. We like.
But not the dwarfs. The dwarfs can take a hike.’

Annoyed? Of course! You bet I feel annoyed!

‘You’re not a planet but a planetoid.’
How could I not perceive my relegation
To be the bitterest humiliation?
And that is why I sulk and slowly spin,
Forlornly wishing to be let back in.
Alone, way out here in the Kuiper Belt,
Shrouded in frozen mists that never melt.

Brandon Robshaw