“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” —Carl Sagan on a photo taken of Earth by Voyager 1 as it left our solar system
.
Pale Blue Dot
pale blue
dot
in the dark of a well,
spot on the mirror sent years ago
into a depth stiller than hell
reflecting our lonely circumstance
home glows tenuous
small as the period
at this sentence end.
◦
vague lucent
point
a place of cruel, small thoughts
as well as those sublime enough
to catch light from billions of years back
closed only by a shortfall of time,
a breadth of scarcity we can’t imagine,
which might require something as
short as an instant’s instant to reveal
if only light were quicker,
the laws of physics fully peeled
and god were not so much a
silent ruthless tricker
.
by Jim Culleny
4/23/15