Gardening Space
There wasn't anything here
when we moved in;
there wasn't any here, yet.
But the neighborhood grew quickly,
an ever-accelerating expansion.
Streetlights flicked on.
We waited impatiently
for the compost of matter to decay
to a substrate for life.
In the meantime, we said Howdy!
to the next-door galaxies over the back fence,
their barbeque grills glowing in the bare dark yards,
the kids arm-wrestling, flexing their muscles
in the neophyte friendships
of gravitational pull.
As the background temperature rose
in minuscule increments,
we planted seeds with each small thaw.
They dwindled and died a billion times.
Through the radiation monsoons,
each drop of energy filling a riddle
of expanding rings, we planted again and again,
scattering starry grains
into barren orbital furrows,
strings marking the seed lines.
It was springtime everywhere at once.
Glowing blooms swelled and unfurled,
vapors emanating to fill hollow voids
with being. Moons hovered like irascible insects
over coalescing worlds.
Sometimes we thought summer would never end,
that the heat would last forever.
We never asked where does it come from.
Where does it go?
We sit on the porch,
shucking green planets from
the opening pods of night,
talking about harvests
and the date of the first
hard frost.
by F.J. Bergman
from Astropoetica,
Summer 2009