#2 - Beam of Light

I love outer space; all of its mystery and wonder. Whenever humanity peers out farther and farther, the universe gets bigger and bigger. I remember hearing about the Hubble Space Telescope taking a picture of the darkest part of the sky. The result from 2012's Hubble eXtreme Deep Field was 5000 new galaxies discovered. Not planets or stars... but galaxies. Outer space is also the place where our comprehension of physics and mathematics get completely wrecked. It's humbling.

  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_eXtreme_Deep_Field

If I recall correctly, this poem was written over two sittings and one revision. When you're really interested in something and try to write about it, I find oftentimes that the words come naturally. This was one of those occasions. 

I woke up in the middle of the night

And transformed into a beam of light

I shot off into the vastness of space

A hundred eighty six thousand miles per second I raced

In a matter of seconds I flew past the moon

The earth transformed to a tiny speck of blue

I shot past the sun in a matter of minutes

Saw the fusion first hand and everything in it

I skipped past Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune

They soon disappeared like a pebble in a sand dune

It took years till I reached another star in the distance

But a new concept of time made it feel like an instant

I flew so fast I saw the constellations change

I avoided black holes, their event horizon’s range

I passed by magnificent gamma ray bursts

And other unknown phenomena of our universe

Nebulas, asteroids and comets were sparse

When considering the length of space at large

I eventually reached the galaxies center

It was a massive black hole, too dangerous to enter

I decided to travel to the galaxies opposite side

I found new stars hidden from earth’s eyes

Binary systems and tertiary ones too

Sprinkled the darkness through and through

I passed beyond the reach of the Milky Way

Into an emptiness where only darkness would stay

The nothingness tested my sanity's reach

But I found Andromeda before my mind found defeat

It was the nearest galaxy and it will eventually collide

With the Milky Way galaxy and all that’s inside

But for me it became a haven of light

Of a billion more stars and other wondrous sights

I continued to travel for I wanted to see

If there was life out there aside from you and me

I guess the complexities on earth are quite scary

For I saw nothing like it during my journey

I had no idea how far I would go

How long I would travel, I’ll never know

For years I seemingly traveled the endless black

Wondering if I would ever come back

I passed by stars greater than the sun

Gaining in speed after passing each one

The size of the universe I could not comprehend

The wondrous sights, they never seemed to end

Farther and farther I continued to explore

There was one truth that I could not ignore

I am but a speck of dust in the grandest abode

Blown into the sky by the wind unknown