Man and His World

We have seen the night,

its white marble stars

like pinholes pricked

in a dark fabric

and held against the light,

the way a child hides

under a blanket,

warm and safe and comforted,

and in this darkness

man has seen of dreaming

in his world.

But in this new land

we have imagined

a world without a fabric,

where we can see beyond

with eyes undarkened;

and not to remove it

from older lands

as if that would be violence,

we moved great tons of earth

to establish a new land,

an exposition

of things yet unknown

or yet to be seen,

and imagined the world there,

and we filled it

with the dirt we carried

from the tunnels we dug

to bring us there.

And in these tunnels,

from beginning to end,

two solitudes became one:

the solitude of man

working in the dark,

digging straight,

knowing nothing but

breath on the tunnel wall,

but dreaming,

even without stars,

of the marble pavilions

at the end.

So in these pavilions

to man and his world

we have torn down the firmament,

we have washed the world

in the white light

that lies beyond,

we have invited the citizens

of a thousand nations,

and they have come out

from the tunnels

to the new land,

cold and tired and hopeful,

like from winter burrows

to a wet dripping spring

that blinds the eyes for a moment

as they search for sight

before the opening

of the world.