 |
| Detail of the cover of Katie Mack's book The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). |
Does it all end, or can we keep on in our merry way indefinitely?… We have doom and destruction of our own to worry about, arriving faster and faster… Plague is rampant. The Arctic Circle is on fire. Still, I find it helpful—not reassuring certainly, but mind-expanding—to be reminded of our place in a vast cosmos. —James Gleick in his review of Katie Mack's book The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) in The New York Times, August 4, 2020
Walked out of my confinement to
Gaze at the sun, moon and stars,
Colossi of our universe, they
Make our world go round,
Turning the wheels, rising
Above our shrinking horizon.
We touch their grandeur to
Sustain our hope and striving.
Shivering, I crash instead into
Our rush into losing everything
There is to lose: day, night, the
Center itself, I ask if our purpose
In the universe is found in such
Disposition, or lost by it as well.
George Salamon lives in St. Louis, MO and most recently has contributed to One Sentence Poems, The Asses of Parnassus, and TheNewVerse.News.