The Last Milestone Poem by Jon Ojala

The young boy lays down on his back
in the short grass near the top of the hill,
shivering from the cold of the late Fall night.
He stares into the starry, moonless sky,
realizing the futility of counting all the stars he sees,
like counting each grain of sand on the beach.
He thinks about what he learned in school today,
of ancient Rome, of the evenly spaced milestones
along the Roman roads, each stone telling the traveler
how far the journey was back to the Eternal City.
How do the astronauts know, he ponders, how far
their journey has taken them thru space?
What is their milestone?
How do they find their way there,
then back home again?
And does the Universe truly extend
in all directions at once,
always expanding, towards infinity?
Or is there a milestone
at the end of the Universe?
His eyes trace the band of the Milky Way
across the dark night sky,
and he feels very small.

© ® 2008 Jon Ojala