WordsOut poems by Godfrey Rust  | collection Welcome To The Real World ← 32 of 59 → | home           

The astronomers

Listen. We hear the background noise
of the beginning of the universe. 

It sounds like a worn-out cassette
or the hiss of a snake from a far-off garden. 

Look. We see 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, then bicker and explode.
Our photographs have given us an idea— 

we are remaking 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 there is down here.