Some near or distant hot hot day
all that lives will burn away,
how could they ever fancy that,
sage men who thought the earth was flat?
In this well-lighted place where we
some minutes since began to be,
dark energy and gravity fight
to speed or brake our headlong flight
along a line whose curves when straight
continue to accelerate
until each galaxy’s alone
(unless they are mirrors of our own
and the universe is rather small
considerably less than all
we see). Tracking back to zero time
recall again the Greek in rhyme
who thought the earth a sculpted drum
like those which still compose some
columns on the Acropolis
(Anaximander thought like this).
For him the beauty of relation,
diameter thrice the elevation
of fluted drums which catch the breath
in shape as absolute as death,
formed harmonies of mind and stone.
He never thought man was alone
or that the earth on which he stood
would burn like any piece of wood.
Now astrophysicists play his game
on some similar astral plane,
shunning gods who bear ill-will,
building frames we question still.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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