A Poem: Immensity

In the immense nothing
the stars came out one by one.
As though they were not hidden so much
as unperceived,
shielded by the day’s light.

In the immense nothing
the stars emerged one after another,
that considering them was like
recalling thoughts,

of the one or two drawn to mind,
multitudes were dissolved as rain.

In the immense nothing stars appeared
as though underneath were not more again,
and we, the flutter of a firefly’s wing,
amongst a possi of luminous beings.

In the immense nothing stars were revealed —
one, two —
as though to insist the dark
had not cancelled them out.

And to stand and watch
was to feel the world small,
how science shines a flashlight
upon the void.

But in the immense nothing
the sky opened up,
and we,
aware of what we couldn’t see,
felt it right to be caressed by the dark.

All the stars in the sky would
only have crowded the vision,
and how the emergence of one light
following another,
is how we best regard one another—

each of us vessels
of incalculable wonder,
against the back drop
of the deep, well of night.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
December 2022

Light is light; it does not ask for more Light.
~ J Krishnamurti

There is at the back of all our lives an abyss of light, more blinding and unfathomable than any abyss of darkness; and it is the abyss of actuality, of existence, of the fact that things truly are, and that we ourselves are incredibly and sometimes almost incredulously real.
It is the fundamental fact of being, as against not being; it is unthinkable, yet we cannot unthink it, though we may sometimes be unthinking about it; unthinking and especially unthanking.
For he who has realized this reality knows that it does outweigh, literally to infinity, all lesser regrets or arguments for negation, and that under all our grumblings there is a subconscious substance of gratitude.
– G. K. Chesterton