BIG BANG

The astronomers came bearing news
about the oldest structures in the universe;
in their paper the word universe isn’t capitalized
but Live Oak, California, population twenty-seven hundred is...
anyway, these immense whispy clouds rippling across time and space,
fifty-nine billion trillion miles, give or take a few trillion,
and we’re not talking square miles here,
are leftovers from the beginning of time
which is thought to have been fifteen billion years ago
when, as the chief astronomer himself said in this year of our Lord
twenty hundred and ten just before noon on a Friday,
something went BANG in the universe,
not little bang but big BANG,
out of what or because of what he didn’t say
because all we really know for sure
is that we are here on this green world of life and death
looking out among the galaxies and stars amazed.