nebulaOn my middle aged quest to find meaning, I turned to astronomy.

The heavenly blue skies ended where the emptiness of space started. There lies my physical limitations and began jump-starting my imaginations. Where will we be in the near future? Can we travel to distant galaxies and still find meaning?

I didn’t find meaning but I did found ethereal beauty, the indescribable beauty of the heavenly bodies. Be it a mindful creation of a magnanimous being, an unbelievable accident caused by mere chance, or a billion year process of evolution, I simply don’t care.

You know sometimes, you don’t have to know the exact reason for its being to admire something that is truly and exquisitely beautiful.

I watched as billions of particles try to enter the edges of the atmosphere. I could see endless flickering atoms bounce  back to where they came from… back to the emptiness within.

I saw how one massive black hole swagger its cosmic might, walloping all the stars and galaxies into oblivion, sucking them all past event horizon… only to spit them all out to where they originally came from… to the vacuums of infinite space.

The thousands of known asteroids and comets came flying by, like a multitude of little girls in a ballet performance of gigantic proportions, dancing to a muffed symphony of classical music.

I watched as galaxies collide and stars explode and created an energy so massive I wouldn’t even dare  imagine its possibilities. It was all so complex yet looked so simple religion tried to underscore it, science is still working on it, and  philosophy couldn’t quite describe it.

Poetry…. only poetry can.

Just like the regular dude, I first found poetry kind of gay. The chauvinist and discriminating man inside of me created such stereotypical images of people who are into poetry. I tried to hide it. But I felt unreal. I was a hypocrite.

I didn’t know I love it until astronomy led me to its discovery…

Like astronomy, it tickles and amuses my brain, the way my mind works for those hidden meanings for uttered lavishly intricate words. Like walking past the bushes all the way to the garden maze of the evergreens. Like trying to measure the presence of dark matters, it would never cease to unravel new meanings, new mysteries.

Like the heavens, it arouses my senses, the way my lips utter elegantly patterned syllables of each and every verse. Like trying to discern the intricate but distinct smell of each and every flower on a hot summer day. Like figuring out a way to comprehend the concept of multiple universes, it would eventually fill our minds until they explode and be part of the natural world.

Poetry, yes, poetry…  only poetry can describe such beauty.