Home Sick

Exhausted by this foreign clime,
relentless sand awaits my spade
beneath these stars as old as time.

What secrets lie below the dunes,
perhaps a shard of glass inlaid
with strangely wrought exotic runes?

How did this race procure its end,
were fatal flaws indeed parlayed
to bring about extinctions trend?

I sift for clues with growing dread.
Will my report at last be made
to another planet cold and dead?