Photographs and fairytales
Are all we really know
Of the planet our ancestors
Deserted long ago
Remnants of our carelessness
Still rise as smoky plumes
As the barren sphere of planet earth
Out of the darkness looms

Welcome back

Centuries have passed
Since humanity last stared
At the world of our origins
So we are unprepared
Desolate and lifeless
As we finally descend
Burning beneath clouds of ash
Too dark to comprehend

We return to the earth

When we touch down
The dry ground cracks
And as we step outside
All of our hope instantly dies
The seas, once so blue and full of life
Now red and clouded
We dare not even think about what lies

Beneath the surface

The landscape has been completely defaced
Nearly all signs of life erased
The land still bears the scars
Of long-forgotten wars
In the cities where the bombs fell
The streets still swamped in gore

A journey through the wasteland
Reveals no trace of hope
Our return voyage to our lander
Cut short by wind and smoke
Growing weak and hungry
Our strength begins to fail
Satellite systems obsolete
In the filthy, gusting gale

Welcome back to planet earth
Take for granted and reap what you've sown
Your mission was futile, you're never going home
Planet earth is the last you'll ever know

Petrified woodlands will become our graves
The last of a species too selfish to be saved
Planet after planet was fated
To be destroyed by humankind
Why did we ever return to planet earth?

To suffer the fate we deserve?
Headfirst into our doom
The lessons we refused to learn
Are now sealing humanity's tomb