How Pale the Poem - An Echo Poem
How Pale the Poem!
(An Echo Poem) (1)
Are poems lovely as night's stars?
Aren't all more fireflies viewed in jars?
*
*
Faint points of light man barely sees
now (gift of Science) galaxies,
are strung on necklaces like beads.
Star deaths the birth, spread all life's seeds.
So far away (more distant still)
define our universe and fill
it to its width, dark's depth, light's height.
Some may exceed the speed of light (2)
if space, itself, perhaps, expands -
somehow, some way! But what commands?
*
*
Man's dreams are blessed with mystery!
Was God required to dream first tree?
Brian Johnston
January 27th in 2023
Poet's Note:
My poem was inspired by Joyce Kilmer's well known poem "Trees."
(1) Echo Poem: A poem that reflects the form or content of another poem (or both).
(2) Modern physics has long been perplexed by a phenomena known as the "Red Shift" which first revealed that, in general, the more distant a star is from us, the faster it is receding away from us. But more recent research (over time) has also revealed that the speed with which stars are receding is accelerating. One way to explain this is the
idea that the space between the stars is expanding. If that is true, then more distant stars might disappear because their light can no longer reach us. What seems to be an apparent edge of the universe might not be real. The most distant stars might "Wink Out" not because they are not there, but because, as they gradually exceed the speed of light (in relation to us), their light can no longer ever reach us! How fun!
TREES
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain,
[Whose colors change as season's turn
though green garbs cling to firs, some fern.] (3)
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
BY JOYCE KILMER (1913)
(3) The bracketed lines [] are an addition. If Mr. Kilmer had only known that I was going to honor him with my Echo Poem in 100 + years I feel sure that he would have extended his poem to help make my 'echo' of his work an even more perfect match with seven couplets.
In truth though, I think his self-deprecation in the next to last line a bit over the top.
"My poem's womb's the heart of me,"
is modestly and freely proffered here.
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