Sedna, The Tenth Planet
by Siberia

Note: An article about the possible origins of Sedna prompted this poem's creation.

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Orbting around Sol
At the furthest reaches
Of the single-parent home
Sedna's the wayward daughter
Of a patriarchal father

As the tenth planet one can see
She's last in the family tree
It's so hard to receive warmth
When nine other siblings
Sit closer to the hearth

First, there's youthful Mercury
Short, and prone to acne
Always sucking up to daddy
Quick-footed and clever
Clearly the most favoured

With her thick mass of hair
And secrets she never shares
Venus is charming, but beware
She has a tendency to scorch
All those who pass too close

Her fraternal twin Terra
Is about the same height
And though she isn't as pretty
She remains a unique sight
Always blushing with life

Next up is red-faced Mars
Who's as vicious as a shark
But there was a time, long ago
When he was a lot like Terra
Why did he change? Nobody knows

The tallest of Sol's children
Jupiter looks a lot like dad
And is known to be quite a cad
They say his devotees
Number at sixty-three!

Saturn has his share of flings
And has left thirty-four spinning
But he feels a little envious
Of Jupiter's successes
And compensates with flashy rings

Uranus' posture is strange
His body slouches forward
While the rest can stand up straight
Sol suspects an early injury
Caused the boy's current state

The moody one is Neptune
Whose short temper explodes
Like a violent tornado
You sure don't want to get caught
Within his Great Dark Spot!

Delving in darkness and death
Pluto's a lonely eccentric
And he's downright obsessive
Tired of being next to last
He sometimes crosses Neptune's path

As the smallest of the brood
Sedna's the least understood
An alien in her own house
It's enough for her to question
The nature of her origins

She feels terribly out of place
In this cold, vast, empty space
Even her Inuit name
Possesses no connection
With Sol's Latin tradition

Like the doomed Arctic goddess
Who drowned in the ocean's depths
Sedna grips the kayak's edge
Unsure of her father's love—
Will he cut her fingers off?

Denied any family fun
She turns away from the Sun
Straying far from everyone
And in her lonesome thoughts
She wonders where she's really from