McDONALD OBSERVATORY
Up among the miller moths and piles of moth
bodies, up where they do lunar laser
ranging, where Texas drops away like the wings
of tomorrow, where the three nano second
Korad ruby laser beamed sixteen straight years
at the moon measuring our distance within
centimeters, confirming
Einsteinian
relativity, judging earthquakes, the drift
of
continents, lunar wobble, the human
heart soars with possibilities of
being
out over the buttes and mesquite, the dry oaks
gnarling, up
through cirrus clouds, stratus, out,
out to where the white-domed
telescopes barely
pierce. We're alone, and lucky that we
attained
this form before we grabbed evolution by
the genes and
hightailed it into a future
peripheral to nature, but not to
us.
"O, meddling humanity, discover
my laws, but respect my vision.
One hundred
seven inches will get you to the verge of
the
insubstantial universe, but not to
the heart of the matter. Dive deep,
deep into
the ease of breathing, into the aorta's
pumping, feel it
in the wild chaos of cells,
urgent, desiring. Ask the synapses
who'll
come next, fluttering as moths on the mountain."
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