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Robbi Nester
Space Talk
Above us on the screen we see a photograph
from the new Webb telescope, focused on a tiny
patch of space, revealing countless galaxies
no other humans ever knew were there.
Here’s a nebula where stars are forged
of compressed dust and heat, just as, we’re
told, the God of Genesis once formed
humans out of dust. At the end of their
long stellar lives, they too return to dust
in the cold apparent emptiness of space.
A black hole lies at the center of our galaxy,
the planets circling like marbles in a vortex,
painted horses on a carousel. Glamorous
Jupiter with her train of moons, storm
always swirling on the surface, Saturn
and its rings of broken rock, small blue
Earth, edging ever closer to that black
dilated pupil, where they’ll one day
be reduced to nothingness, a mystery
no telescope will ever parse. It’s gravity
that keeps the planets on their track,
the same force that draws us toward
our eventual undoing. At the end,
the dust comes out again to welcome us.
About the writer:
Robbi Nester is the author of four books of poems and theee anthologies. She curates and hosts two virtual poetry readings a month.
Image: Formula of the Universe by Pavel Filonov (1882-1941). No medium specified. No size specified. 1928. Public domain.
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