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The astronomers
Listen. We hear the background noise
of the beginning of the universe.
It sounds like the hiss
of a snake from a far-off garden.
Look. We see more than ten billion years
backwards into time.
We are the new Magellans. Our galaxies
are beautiful flowers of red and blue.
We are virtual explorers. We stay
where we are and bring the universe
to us. We are voyeurs
of the bad habits of constellations: we watch
them grow and marry, bicker and explode.
Our photographs have given us the idea—
we will rebrand the universe
as a theme park. We have made
our calculations. Our prize will be
the film of God, waving to us
across unimaginable space and time.
Somewhere out there we believe is life,
though we are now less certain
of what it is that moves about down here.
© Godfrey Rust 1996, godfrey@wordsout.co.uk. See here for permissions.