Death is a Window but Life is a Door'
from Parables from Other Planets
by Hugh and Gayle Prather

PLANET: Serin

TRANSLATION: Perhaps the most poetic of all planets is Serin, where the population speaks in meter and often in rhyme. Poetry is traditionally associated with idyllic conditions, but because the land is poor and the climate harsh, life on Serin is difficult. The planet's historians believe that the verse-like quality of the language was born of working songs and the chants needed to coordinate mass hard labor, which on Serin seems endless. When Serinans were recently given the opportunity to move to a newly discovered planet that was far more hospitable than their own, many observers were surprised that, even after most of them had visited it, only one small township elected to move. Interviewed as to why she had not wanted to leave, one Serinan was quoted as saying:

We've learned to take the troubles we face
As means of giving and gaining embrace.
If we move to a place that fits like a glove,
We'lljusthave to search fora reason to love.