But We Had Music

by Maria Popova

But We Had Music by Maria Popova
 
Right this minute
across time zones and opinions people are
making plans
making meals
making promises and poems
while
at the center of our galaxy
a black hole with the mass of four billion suns
screams its open-mouth kiss
     of oblivion.
Someday it will swallow
Euclid’s postulates and the Goldberg Variations,
swallow calculus and Leaves of Grass.
I know this.
And still
when the constellation of starlings
flickers across the evening sky,
it is     enough
to stand here
for an irrevocable minute
     agape with wonder. 
It is     eternity.
 



Listen to Nick Cave read this animated poem here:
 
https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/04/06/but-we-had-music/?mc_cid=4012e1f8d6&mc_eid=a67a0584bd