They wanted to know what it was like

They wanted to know what it was like
To be human, how much we made up
And how much was genuine.

They wanted to know whether perhaps
We made up everything,
Our sorrows, our loves,
Even the inevitability of death.

Life in its everyday
What it’s like to take your choppy breath,
That they wanted to know.

Or how long it takes you
To get to the bank from the house
Walking, or taking the bicycle,
Or driving some motor vehicle.

Why would someone lie about
Such trifling things?
What would be the point of that?

To think we traveled
Past our own long lives,
Generations gave themselves
To the black and the fire to learn of you!

This one complained after learning
Humans lie, are forced to lie
About even the smallest things!

Another thought he had the way
To something true,
And asked the earthling the color
Of the vaulting thing he had come from.

Blue, the funny looking being said
With utter confidence, bringing others
From every corner of the planet to confirm.

And in a thousand tongues
They said blue or a word like blue,
Whatever disputes there were
Seemed absurd and were short-lived.

If the visitors could have shaken their heads,
If every movement of theirs wasn’t like liquid
Shifting from one place to another at a tremble:

They shook their heads at the cackling planet
And boarded their ships like water bottles
And shot up into the air without a sound of parting.