Monday, October 4, 2010

Blink

Blink
by Gideon Burton

A world appears and disappears. Observe

the cosmos blush and crest and burst alight
with radiance and night. The comets swerve
and circle, suns grow dim in embered flight;
they turn, returning, churning fresh the coal
reluctance of the waving curtains' mass, 
deep wells of gravity and time. A bowl
of water quivers, blue and brooding, vast
enough for microbe mammoths, insect whales
and here and there an eon like a tide
flows ebbing, ups the ante and the scale,
geographies and centuries collide.
     Then man appears and lingers for his day,
     and in a hiccup vanishes away.

Photo: flickr - TimOve

2 comments:

  1. I really like this. The transience of man on this galactic plane.

    I love "microbe mammoths, insect whales."

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  2. I like the glimpse of time that the world presents. "Microbe mammoths, insect whales" in terms of perspective beyond our visual range. What a fun play with perspective!

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