Mystic Journey: Gravity 1 Poem by doug bentley

seen through hubble's scope* the orion
nebula resembles a bloody moth sticking
to incandescent lamp. thousands of solar
systems wide from wing-tip to tip it hides

motionless, held in the frozen aloneness
of deep space. hives of galaxies, fuzzy
fireflies caught in the endless nocturnal
background of amateur entomologist's photo,

complete the frame. time records an instant
of time that takes place only this moment.
are we too upturned butterflies, undersides
of formaldehyde wings exposed to erosion

by elements, cocooned coffins of decaying
flesh? nothing before, nothing after?
birth and death but end points on a finite
line? or are birth and death opposing

forces on an endlessly repeating circle
spinning and spinning about aimlessly,
south and north poles on a compass
tucked away in a lost mariner's pocket?

one lifetime is a thousand too short
to learn the answers to every question,
but instinct has a notion. nothing more
than the memory of deaths, to have it

we must have died countless times before.
so so much for a finite line. and
the main problem with a perfect circle-
it forgets the habits of evolution.

that's why i favor a looping spiral.
but what do sciences say of Man?
how old are we? were particles from which
we are made buzzing when the big roar

began? were our elementary atoms stitched
together before the sun was a child star?
the day our DNA graduated and became code
were the hapless dinosaurs no more than

molecules of clay mixed in mud? on the road
from amoeba to angel, did stellar evolution
design Man the crown of earthly nature?
having invested so much effort and time

in the production of our architecture,
would Kosmic Mind suffer any mind's oblivion
at the random chance of a clogged aorta?
viewed from the bottom-up are we not senior

to the dinosaur on nature's calendar?
seen from top-down does the magna carta
of Kosmic Law not bind nature to conserving
every speck of self-conscious vitality?


* Hubble telescope