Perhaps
Nels Hanson


On ringed Saturn and Jupiter
palm-sized diamonds may rain

at first. In the Gas Giants’ upper
atmospheres high pressure could

turn carbon to prized gems, soot
particles freed from particles of

methane fall past heavy hydrogen
and helium toward each planet’s

hot core. Ash on its way down
squeezed by force condenses to

jewels past price on Earth, before
fiery centers of the planets melt

raining diamonds to crystal seas
that might exist on Neptune and

Uranus. It depends on fire’s heat,
enough methane to change soot

into diamonds, diamonds to rain
to ocean whose sparkling waves

wait an abandoned god’s return,
starry finger of an exiled queen.

About the author:
Nels Hanson has worked as a farmer, teacher and contract writer/editor. His fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in 2010, 12, and 2014. His poetry has appeared in Word Riot, Oklahoma Review, Pavilion, and other magazines and two poems have been nominated for 2014 Pushcart Prizes.