Upon one night that was quiet resting
without a single star
Within that realm we cannot touch because
its contents live too far,
A comet journeyed through space and sped
across the pathway of sight
Its distant splintered trail did fail to break
the stillness of the night
And left behind for brief moments,
a sprinkling of glittering dust
Then spread itself apart in exorcise
for disappear it must.
I wonder now as I reflect upon
the scope of what I’d seen
How many a soul, who looking up has
spied that which rests between
The trembling earth and far-off heaven’s vast
and unchartered domain,
Space that exists in spite of awesome passions
in all that remain
Once where Apollo strode across the ancient
footstool of the sky
While lithesome Mercury did there his playful
lust for speech apply,
And streaked about that wide expanse mankind had
labeled celestial,
Touching not on boundaries that are coursing
earth’s terrestial,
Yet seeming to pursue some unrestricted
end with gain supreme,
Wherein planet, moon and star react to
cycles each may redeem.
There with some complicated astronomer’s
tool to find and trace
A pattern that explains how each remembers
their specific place
Knowing one force guides this universe
with unrelenting power
Controlling the slowest movement that marks
each minute, counts each hour.
A lesson we’ve found to be constant and
true this power exists
With a will that is strong wavering not
and one plan that persists.
Search among the learning of the past while
interest piques the mind
And delving through Homer’s expertise forthwith
to some wisdom find,
Finally to conclude that man must in
his endless questing be
The simplest transiting creature that dwells
within infinity :
Let our reason be such while we follow each star
As it crests in the sky at some distance too far,
Never losing the faith that depends on our sight,
Fail to shatter the darkness which we’ll call the night
Ere time greets that moment when we pass into dust,
Know the ends of our lives are a natural must.
Claire V. Bogdanos 