Search spacious realms, dear Hubble,
Galaxies, like stars of ten Milky Ways,
With their own stars and cosmic rubble,
Planetary coveys feel stellar rays.

How utterly vast, calculus conveys,
Universe so wide, so deep and tall,
Accelerating yet, its expanding ways,
Stretch of infinity, wall to wall.

Tiny pale gilded incandescence,
Small star, hydrogen fusion shines
On shrouded blue white opalescence,
Where ocean and cloud intertwines.

Modest planet, merest of blue specks,
Embarrassed by a wealthy universe.
Home to arrogant egotistic wrecks,
Who claim gods, and ignore obverse.

Make edifice to their gods so great,
As to intimidate with feelings of awe,
Goal is humility they boldly state.
Please! Gaze into heavenly maw.

Thomas Paine’s logic for profit heed:
From whence this solitary conceit,
With billions of worlds in equal need
Of His beneficent care to mete,

That God would come HERE to expire?
Redemption for people who ate fruit?
Or, should we suppose every empire
In boundless creation followed suit?

In dynamics of universal abode,
Worlds are born, live and expire,
In bright supernova, stars explode,
And quasars — whole galaxies afire!

If life be common among worlds so rife,
Routinely planets suffer obliteration —
Different from God caring for life,
Advancing with care, His veneration.

Western theology has God very small,
It’s a Mediterranean-centered view,
Miniscule bit of universe is all,
Its perspective, badly askew.

Not even a planet did its god rule,
Nor galaxy, much less the universe,
Modern cosmos is another school
Than ancestral chapter and verse.

Of myopic god take not my word,
Read holy texts, eyes wide open,
Provincial focus —  how absurd —
This tiny god view — so ill-shapen!

Do we lack humility of expression?
If God is, our intelligence be His gift,
Passionate exploration suppression
Would be unappreciative and adrift.

And if the obverse, and God is not,
Intelligence and curiosity are tools
Essential for surviving this hotspot,
Where nature suffers no fools.

In either case, knowledge enterprise
Is surely consistent with science,
Essential for human emprise —
Survival, and spirit of ebullience.

Now, survey universe, aperture ajar,
Infinitude of incredibly glorious shapes,
Each speck a galaxy or blazing star,
Ungodly vast, these cosmo-scapes:

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/showcase.php  

© 2007 R. Leland Waldrip