Baffling Lightness Of Being Poem by Harley White

A novel I read said you live then you're dead
and that lightness of being's unbearable.
But wantonness led to commitment instead,
so perhaps its intention was parable.

The Hubble Space Telescope pointed its gaze
at a spiral in Virgo constellation—
a beautiful galaxy with puzzling ways
that's been given a lengthy designation.

It seemed normal, like Milky Way, at first glance,
but appearances often prove deceptive.
With camera which could the image enhance
that appraisal turned out to be defective.

There's a supermassive black hole at the heart
of the star system where we earthlings abide.
Yet this outwardly similar counterpart
has one with the lowest mass centered inside

that's nearly ever, in a luminous core
galactic, been found; still extra perplexing
is the computations they made, furthermore,
don't add up, which to scientists is vexing.

With black hole so light, the models predicted
emissions different from the spectrum seen
in the circling accretion disk depicted,
unless other processes here intervene.

Lightness of being has various senses
depending upon our perception of light.
Vision illumined calls forth recompenses
with deeper discernment that's far more than sight.

A sage once stated and reiterated
that life's as fleeting as an outgoing breath.
Since no one can tell when passing is slated,
he thought first of all he should learn about death.

Most live by ideas believed to be true,
while bedazzled by passion's pressing decrees,
swept on in a daze as their days fade from view,
having failed to perceive the forest for trees.

If our mortal demise is the journey's end
of all states of beingness, anguish and woe,
and there's nowhere beyond for the road to bend,
then none of it matters— but how do we know?