When U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon was asked to write a poem for inscription on a NASA spacecraft headed to Jupiter's icy moon Europa, she felt a rush of excitement at the honour, followed by bewilderment at the seeming enormity of the task.
"Where do you start a poem like that?" she recalled thinking just after receiving the invitation in a call at the Library of Congress, where the 47-year-old poet is serving a two-year second term as the nation's top bard.
On Thursday night, exactly one year later in a ceremony at the library, across the street from the U.S. Capitol, Limon's 21-line creation, In Praise of Mystery: a Poem for Europa, was unveiled and read aloud to a public audience for the first time, receiving a standing ovation.
