The Great Explosion

The universe expands and contracts like a great heart.

It is expanding, the farthest

Rush with the speed of light into empty space.

It will contract, the immense navies of stars and galaxies,            dust clouds and

Are recalled home, they crush against each other in one            harbor, they stick in one

And then explode it, nothing can hold them down; there is no            way to express that explosion; all that

Roars into flame, the tortured fragments rush away from each            other into all the sky, new

Jewel the black breast of night; and far off the outer nebulae            like charging spearmen

Invade emptiness.                                No wonder we are so fascinated with

And our huge bombs: it is a kind of homesickness perhaps for        the howling fireblast that we were born from.

But the whole sum of the

That made and contain the giant atom survives.

It will        gather again and pile up, the power and the glory—And no doubt it will burst again; diastole and systole: the        whole universe beats like a heart.

Peace in our time was never one of God's promises; but back        and forth, live and die, burn and be damned,

The great heart beating, pumping into our arteries His        terrible life.                            He is beautiful beyond belief.

And we,

God's apes—or tragic children—share in the beauty.        We see it above our torment, that's what life's for.

He is no God of love, no justice of a little city like Dante's        Florence, no anthropoid

Making commandments,: this is the God who does not care        and will never cease.

Look at the seas

Flashing against this rock in the darkness—look at the        tide-stream stars—and the fall of nations—and

Wandering with wet white feet down the Caramel Valley to        meet the sea.

These are real and we see their beauty.

The great explosion is probably only a metaphor—I know not        —of faceless violence, the root of all things.