That boy:
A soul dropped into time and space
Like a living land rover
To explore a foreign soil
Called home.
Only problem was —
Houston cut all communication,
Erased all memory of life 
Before the launch, 
Making him part of the experiment.
He and a whole crop of data collectors
Born across a nation’s breadth
Combed the landscape like ants
Gathering and becoming
The minutia of a million memories.
That man:
Vaguely sensing he is something living
Within a dying vessel
And somehow conscious
That the data has not been harvested in vain,
Has an ET moment that it is nearing time to return.
How many dots must he connect to see
That the game played is not the reality?
If he looks up a second, an insect stunned with insight,
To grasp even a hint of his mission and purpose,
Does he acquire some trace of dignity?
Is he set free of his limitations?
Does his anesthetized brain
Come alive like an electrical grid
That lights every small event he has gathered 
Into this thing called “his life?”
Does he at death place his offering
Fully aware before the One who sent him?