Here on the page before me
thanks to Hubble
a photograph of distant galaxies
a cluster of some dozens
that appear here as bright circles
each centered within
a wider circle
golden and diaphanous
the stars innumerable that form these circles
released their light
not long after the birth
of this unimaginably vast
universe of which our sun is but
one tiny speck
that floats along the outskirts
of a galaxy
unremarkable except to us
the one we've named the Milky Way
the light I'm seeing represented
in the photograph
travelled through space
thirteen point four billion years
to reach our solar system
hard to say which is the more astounding
that depth of time and space
or our human ability to catch
this ancient light
and know what it can tell us
of our past
our future and the stuff
that we are made of