A nothing from nowhere cast his words to a world wide wind, hindered by periphery. |
a pale blue dot, an image from a voyage long ago -- in your galaxy caught departing a planetary neighborhood. from its fringes, I note where you are. one last look, my home planet. you could be a billion light years away. from this vantage, on my ecliptic plane, a portrait of a fading world captured -- caught in the center of scattered light. deflection, I suppose, from bright reduction. a tiny point of light, if you strain to see. home, with everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've heard of -- every human who ever was lived out their lives where you are -- the aggregate of joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines -- every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, all creators and destroyers of civilization, king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher, corrupt politician, superstar, supreme leader, saint and sinner and followers -- the history of a species lived there -- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena, challenged by a point of pale light, in the great, enveloping, cosmic dark. In obscurity, in all vastness, no hint help will come from elsewhere to spare pale blue insignificance. this dot spins on axis, fixedly, as if waiting for some deity come down from invisible heavens. a tiny world floating on the perimeter, daring near the center of all creation, functioning to give purpose to anyone who shall pass, miss one so minuscule as a pale blue dot. 43 lines 9.23.21 last two lines hidden because I added for contest and feel foolish now. borrowing a reference and book title from Carl Sagan about beliefs of the existence of God and what man could do to better himself, make this a better place for all who struggle. if it still speaks to me long after I write it, it must be so. |