A Poem for Sunday
Hi folks! I am one free subscriber away from 70, which would feel like a milestone in terms of round numbers, so…
I am in awe of the Webb Telescope, and if you have seen any of the majestic images it returns, you can understand why. For instance…
At the moment, the fascination with what burns inside of me equals that of what burns beyond our atmosphere—aren’t we all made of “star stuff” anyway? I confess to having slower and less beautiful results than the Webb Telescope, but I will keep peering nonetheless.
Given the subject matter, I stumbled across this poem by Diane Thiel, “Listening in Deep Space.” This actually sounds like the job for me—I could sit and listen to wavelengths and nebulae and hope for the humming of “universal field theory” that Einstien theorized stitched everything together, the final piece of the universe.
I think, like many, I vacillate between wonder and loneliness, between wanting exploration and our inability to care for the one rock we’ve been given. To anyone who we could reach, would we be happy with how we were introducing ourselves? With what we are and have been?
Here’s your Sunday poem.
Listening in Deep Space by Diane Thiel, from Red Hen Press and Questions from Outer Space We've always been out looking for answers, telling stories about ourselves, searching for connection, choosing to send out Stravinsky and whale song, which, in translation, might very well be our undoing instead of a welcome. We launch satellites, probes, telescopes unfolding like origami, navigating geomagnetic storms, major disruptions. Rovers with spirit and perseverance mapping the unknown. We listen through large arrays adjusted eagerly to hear the news that we are not alone. Considering the history at home, in houses, across continents, oceans, even in quests armed with good intentions, what one seeker has done to another— what will we do when we find each other?
