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Galaxy Zoo
Welcome, all, to the great Galactic Zoo;
countless galaxies will crowd your view now,
flashing and dashing in from all sides,
a hail of them, all shapes and size:
edge-on, needle spears of silvery-white,
fat and face-on plates of spiralled star-stuff
until soon they are all that you can see
and your PC screen is just a misted-over
window, stencilled with tiny little
pretty citadels of starlight…
Once inside our doors you’ll feel the pouring
of Time slow to a trickle then stop quite dead,
replaced by the endless, silent ebb
of blue- and red-shifted lenses past
your hypnotised, bleary eyes. I’ll warn you,
within the Zoo minutes become hours, hours
dash by like meteors until finally your brain will
crash and you’ll beg to be allowed to sleep. But even
there you’ll dream of what you’ve seen here
on your screen, delighting to the sight of galaxies
drifting past your eyes like snowflakes,
a blizzard of them, thick clouds and sweeping
banks of them, glittering and wafting and
tumbling on the cosmic breeze, each one surely
home to at least one species convinced
theirs is The Only One, the one all other galaxies
revolve around or are fleeing wildly from.
It’s so easy to skip onwards, onwards;
just click the mouse once more ‘til bored
with yet another misty maelstrom,
your eyes slowly glazing over at the sight
of all that gravity-frothed starlight swirled
and whirled into Catherine wheel curls
of creamy white and stained glass window blue…
but each one deserves from you at least
a minute’s pause, sixty seconds
of silent contemplation and respect.
Each subtle spiral or cumulo-stellar cloud
is very likely someone else’s Milky Way. Today
every galaxy you see, large or small
has seen mighty Empires rise and fall,
proud Cultures come and go like melting snow
flakes, fine and noble species have flowed
along and through its sun-strewn arms and past its cluttered core.
So do not rush here, but hush your words
of condemnation for the less-than-lovely
galaxies you’ll see painted on your screen.
All are lanterns in a universe of darkness
and you can never know which glowing coal
in the cosmos’ crackling fire is home
to some exotic alien Zoo wanderer who,
looking at her own flat flickering screen has just seen
our Milky Way and casually click-clicked on her way
thinking “Nothing special…”
One thing is certain. “Does that one look like ours?”
you’ll wonder as you wander through the Zoo, searching for
a single perfect spiral snowflake hidden
within the pixelated haze of the Sloan Surveyed
sky, already knowing in your heart a perfect match
would be impossible to find.
But that won’t stop you looking…
© Stuart Atkinson 2007
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