Cosmic Challenge

During a week spent at Launde Abbey, listening to the enthusiasm of Bro. Guy Consolmagno, now (2018) Director of the Vatican Observatory, was an experience in which the horizons of everyone participating were inevitably widened. I am grateful to Bro Guy for all he shared and encouraged us to share. The following poem speaks to that widening of horizons.

Cosmic Challenge 
This is more than a Creator’s world, it is his cosmos.

Dare we conceive of that?

The stretch of mind

that flings us far beyond the near horizons

of trees, mountains, moon

to the dark behind

the planets and the constellations.

Nebulae, dark matter, galaxies galore,

rays transcending reason;

massive black holes

appearing to challenge our cherished beliefs

of physics and galactic cohesion.

Exquisite objects of wonder and awe.

More, in the subatomic where, similarly, marvels exist

requiring observation

and interpretation

of particles that just momentarily subsist.

Consider the brain; cerebrum, synapses, neurons.

The genome decoded, in part, by part:

computers with dazzling out-turns

embracing science and algorithmic art.

From astrophysics, palaeontology, oceanography;

oh! a myriad of disciplines

flow concept on concept apace,

provisionally unfolding the next depth of mystery

of a wondrous Lordship of time and space.

There are other similar poems on this site which can be found at the special index Here