Wednesday, February 02, 2005

The View from Hubble

Bush, in view of the attempts to get the Hubble repair job dropped from the budget, which apparently you support, I'd like you to check out this URL. It will amaze you! Here's some words to go with it:


The View from Hubble

Imagine
marvelous places
we have never visited, a thousand
light years distant, light
and darkness such as we have
never seen, holes
in the universe, bodies
of substances unknown, the swirl
of gases as yet undiscovered,
colors unimagined, fragments
of matter exploding outward,
explosions beyond
comprehension, beyond
the power of a billion
billion of your h-bombs,
particles greater than our galaxy,
shot out in space
at speed of light, imploding,
inward, towers of nebulae, spaces
expanding infinitely, collapsing
in on themselves. Imagine a sun
six hundred thousand times
more luminous than our puny Sol.

Their names: Sombrero Galaxy,
Hoag's Object, Galaxy Centaurus A,
Tarantula Nebula, Little Ghost,
Monocerotis Star. Say them
aloud. Rehearse
their magic. Spell them.

Sit down. Sit still. Breathe.
Breathe with eyes closed, to see
the majesty of a thousand universes
inside ourselves: as outside
so within, reflecting, mind
of the Buddha, one, a million
worlds, all one, within. Imagine
a universe of universes
beyond comprehension, mother
of all the gods we have yet
managed to conceive, matter
and anti-matter, one, all,
everything; no space, no time,
inside, outside, breathing,
all one, what
it is.

1 comment:

LillianAbel said...

You have eloquently penned the indefinable