Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). |
“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….
Our
planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. “
~Carl Sagan
and
again look—
where
do you see yourself?
Flitting
between the minute pixels of the blue,
Perforating
the ink with your curling smile,
blink-
how
it goes away.
“look
again at that dot.”
fascinate-
just as we are by reflections in the mirror-
blue,
the blue of your eye shadow
as
you check yourself again and fidget,
not
ready to sit down with me; you aren’t ready but you
disappear
as you exit the frame.
I
want to hang this picture of a dot
on
our first apartment wall, alone
in
the white, empty space of the virgin paint—
paint
one blue dot that says it all.
When
guests come in
we
won’t be able to check ourselves in the mirror
as
we get the door
so
we’ll look at that blue dot,
see
what we look like.
What
do we look like?
I’ve
never seen—
I
should get it tattooed on my body,
to
be sure I’d have it.
You’ve
got plenty on your body,
across
your back, quotes behind your ears
the
makeup that spans and shifts your face
but
it’d be the one
unnatural
placement of ink on me that I didn’t clear out onto the page.
One
tiny satellite amidst the constellations of freckles on my back,
marking—
there is something missing.
One
tiny dot. Is it me?
Can
you fit in it?
I
would look again,
the
words everything we will ever know,
everything any of us has ever known
is in this one little dot. Is it on me? And where have you gone—
And
why do I feel like there is something missing?
From
these dates, from building a relationship,
experience
by experience,
silly
little fact here- the serious conversation about childhood-
favorite
colors- how long before I have to memorize your birthday?
Where
are we in the big picture?
Earth.
There
isn’t much to find, there is just
this
one blue dot.
It’s
trouble to keep occupied.
You
are here though,
somewhere
across the mm that seems so very long and wide.
I
will always look again—
The
dot—
like
a pupil, not a spot, but a hole-
a
search or a sight or,
however
it is, where are you?
Don’t
be afraid of loneliness*, is being whispered to me,
we
will take each other down
to
the lake, with the waters that shiver
—where
I would marry you,
right
in the water where we would embrace
and
not feel so alone
surrounded
by all the tiny blue dots that are something more—
The
angel who wrestled hid his face
even
from Jacob-something, even in dreams
hiding
keeps up the search but we cannot hide, here.
You
hide your face, it is not so small;
Sometimes
I have never seen it.
I
hardly know who you are sometimes.*
These
poems are all attempts—
You
may come, you may change
this
question that looms over us but—
“a
mote of dust”?
I
think, what’s really in it?
Questions
about love? Or loneliness?
And
from the expanse of silence and space,
and
from earth,
you
tell me look again—
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