I woke up feeling that today will allow a great deal of creative thought -- thanks to some mysterious force, the laws of which we haven't yet discovered. This poem, which originally appeared in Eclectic Journal, is my ode to those unknown, expansive forces.
Twice As Much Starlight
The universe, say surprised astronomers, has twice as much accumulated starlight as can be explained by all the known stars and galaxies. -- Newspaper article, 1998.
This can only mean
a hidden conflagration
burns in the cosmic whirl.
Where can it live, this occult fire --
not at the center
galaxies are escaping.
Not at the frontiers of space
where new suns are pioneered.
So where does the pure pulse
of light beat,
how does it race out of nowhere,
like a night light
the void itself switches on?
Leave it to science to find evidence
that deep in the spin
of atoms is a tiny sun, a heart
of radiance. Let the measuring mind
find the measureless through theoretical
mathematics, I only know
I have lived through days
when there is twice as much love
as people around me to explain it.