The Matter Of The Milky Way Poem by Hans Ostrom

In a magazine
on astronomy,
I read today
the Milky Way
will also disintegrate.

Juxtaposed against
such change,
my experiences,
memories, and ambitions
are telescopically
less than microscopic.

Yet my life feels important
to me. -Habit,
I suppose. A person
goes on even as
it’s clear a powerful
case can be made
for the idea that nothing,
not even matter, matters.

But I’m not going to make
that case because I
have to go to work tomorrow,
and you never know—
I might have a few laughs.
I’ll see people I like
and one gray cat,
and this bankless river they call
the Internet, which
must be observed with interest
in some parts of the Milky Way.