A Year Of Newness Poem by Seamus O' Brian

There may be nothing new under this sun
But within the roaring furnace of heaven
Above, who slings gargantuan worlds around
Her unblinking diadem with the easy silence
Of space, two solitary protons who have endured
Unchanged the aeons that have crumbled mountains
And parched oceans on worlds unseen by eyes of dust,
Yet, unmoved, have witnessed the bellowing incinerators
Of Elysium prick the blackness of vast nothingness
With their pupils through which gaze the fires of Sheol,
Only to collapse and exhale with their death
The luminous breath of heaven's nebulae;
Who have, waiting, unaltered since the vast shout
Of becoming, referenced Big Bang by some on this
Speck of flotsam adrift on infinity's ocean and others
The voice of the Divine calling forth the being of light;
Yes, waiting, unaltered while continents drift
And empires arise, erect monuments to their
Enduring magnificence, and return, both rulers
And monuments to the forgotten silence
Of the dust from which they arose. Still they
Wait while volcanoes give birth to islands,
Glaciers march, oceans freeze, mountains
Rise and fall to the rhythm of tectonic impulse,
And still they wait, while languages and worlds
Are born and die the ignoble death
Of the callous indifference of time.
And yet they wait, since they have
Since eternity gave birth to time itself
To collide at this very moment,
Two protons in the intercourse of
The atom become one helium,
And release one photon of light,
which flies with the winged
Feet of Apollo across eight minutes
Of nothing to skim the horizon of earth
And strike the retina of my eye,
And I see the dawn of 2017.
And there is nothing new under this sun
But the eternal newness of the light
Which brings us life and gives us reason
To hope.