Colin Basterfield 2013

In between the stars there be comets
They slide across the sky like silk over linoleum
Chalk the void where only dark matter tends to matter
A lifetime might not be enough to see their kind again
So we remember the day
Hale-Bopp brush-stroked our night
Kennedy took a bullet
Jeff Buckley’s boots filled with mud

But what of the comet’s tale?
Constituent parts of us
Composites beyond atoms, like Lego?
Where only imagination limits
Thought, love, compassion, creativity, beauty, morals, art, ethics
Does imagination limit dark matter?
And as a point of order
Without light, does dark matter really matter?
Among orders of matter
Is it a matter of order
Between light and dark matters?
Or is the order of what matters
Simply a matter of choice

When out there the universe is expanding in all directions
Everything is accelerating away from everything else
But how can that be when you’re standing right there
You’re so close your light arrives without delay
Yet when we turn away,
You too will recede,
Dressed in red shift
Perhaps to play another game
Of statues, on pedestals
As we shift to blue

For Steph Jones