Perspective Poem by Alice Evans

I have heard again the talk of limiting the Bomb,
Miles and miles of talk to shroud thought of the flash
That would turn our minds to cinder and to ash
As the imagined earth.
In a hundred years the unthinkable will have come - or not.

Sometimes I survey the reaches of the night skies
To ease my share of dread.
When I see stars that could engulf both earth and sun,
Stars in the billions, swirling nebulae,
I parody the shepherd who once sang
'What is Man that Thou art mindful of him? '
And think a billion of our lives would be small loss
To a cosmos of as many suns.

Then a neighbor child approaches,
And I show him Orion with his sword of fire.
He hugs himself, for he has recognized Orion.

I turn faint, for now I know as David did
That night in the Judean hills
That feeble man indeed is crowned with honor:
The stars in cataclysmic spendor range through space;
Their years are measured in aeons -
But they are blind, never knowing that they shine.