Jerry Gill

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Astronomers recently detected a supernova explosion deep in the Pinwheel galaxy 21 light years from Earth. This means that the explosion happened 21 million years "ago" and its light is just now reaching "our neck of the woods."

cold night
the wind bell's tinkling
startles me awake

That we insignificant and ephemeral beings can build a machine that can "see" such an event that far away in both distance and time from our mere sand grain of a home in this incalculably vast universe is transcendently brilliant.

But so are a snowflake, a butterfly's wing, any piece of music by Mozart, a drop of water, a hand-held computer, and the simple happiness of a child playing with a soccer ball or an old rag doll.

on Mozart's birthday
playing his first symphony
as snow lightly falls