Far And Near Poem by Harley White

Wonders of the world abound
on our earthly stomping ground,
in the seven seas profound,
midst the heavens round us wound.

Images from reaches vast
by astronomers amassed
show in varicolored cast,
cosmic glories unsurpassed,

stories of the great immense,
begging questions why and whence,
scenes stelliferously dense,
bringing past to present tense.

Oh how tantalizing to
lose oneself in starry view
of galactic vision new
where a poet's words ring true!

Tennyson's ‘Far- Far—Away',
penned for Music's haunting play
with the sounds the words convey
as they whisper, swing and sway,

tells of ‘far' from past long gone,
murmur from ‘his own life's dawn'?
breath where ‘doors of death' go on
through an open curtain drawn?

Whether time or space be meant,
or spacetime together bent,
still, whatever sense is lent,
far's remote in its intent.

After sunset's crimson blaze
we may raise a dreamy gaze
in escape from troubled days
to celestial splendors praise.

Will our search of cosmic sphere
teach us to esteem what's here?
Oft stargazers too I fear
must look far to see the near.