On The Beach At Night, Alone
ON the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining--I think a thought of the clef of
the universes, and of the future.
A VAST SIMILITUDE interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
comets, asteroids,
All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the
same,
All distances of place, however wide,
All distances of time--all inanimate forms,
All Souls--all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in
different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes--the fishes, the
brutes, 10
All men and women--me also;
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages;
All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any
globe;
All lives and deaths--all of the past, present, future;
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd, and shall
forever span them, and compactly hold them, and enclose them.
poem by Walt Whitman
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All These Universes And Distances
ALL THESE UNIVERSES AND DISTANCES
All these universes and distances-
All these places we will never know-
All these worlds forever beyond us-
And we small and lonely,
One little earth in who knows how many great universes-
What will become of us?
What are we meant to be?
It is too much for us alone to see-
God, Help us Please.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Sentimental Love
Distances awake our sentiment
Distances always make us tear
Distances always make us fear
Distances take away the ones who are dear
Distances make us learn that people are dare to care
Distances make us understand the value of having lover ones beside
When they are gone away
When already they are not there
Distances are the remainders of love sentiments
They remind us how we do care
Sometimes unaware we neglect those we care
Those who are precious more then our eyes
But somehow the hardships of our lives
Make us neglect people we love
But when they're gone the longing inside us begin to cry.
Distances separate our bodies yet they bring our souls together
They make us understand the value of our real ones.
poem by Sossi Khachadourian
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How Hopeless It All Seems
HOW HOPELESS IT ALL SEEMS
How hopeless it all seems
When we think of those vast distances
And those vast times
And our own little place in it all-
How hopeless it all seems
When we think of the short time
We are here
And the vast time to come-
What are we?
Small beings in something so much vaster than ourselves
We cannot define it-
How hopeless it all seems
When we know how little we are.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from one another. The quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgment to have safely traveled from star to star.
Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Submitted by Catalin Popescu
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The sing of song
it's a song without title
a song without word
a song without sound
a song in our eyes
a song in our ears
a song in our hands
a song in our feet
We are singing the song
without title
a nameless song
It's a distant song
It's a future song
A song who says:
beyond future, beyond distances,
beyond nothing, beyond always
a song in a single colour
that we don't see
many colours
much colours
unknown colours
this was
a song of your mother
a song of your grandmothers
a song of one very old woman
Sleep, sleep my little love
Dream, dream my little love
when you close open your wide eyes
poem by Jean Francois Le Goff
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Dimension Merge
For us the past has gone and the present moves on
into the yesterday of a future’s present time.
Despite living in the future’s past this will not last,
present and future will very soon combine.
Future or dimension, to some a misapprehension,
but they are one in the same.
If there’s more than one, they will follow on
to leave one, with it’s present name.
On merging we’ll realise we’ve no future to recognise,
and the past and present is all we’ll know.
The past will still be renewed, with each day used,
but the future will mean only tomorrow.
poem by Orlando Belo
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As night is black
As night is black and speckled
by a glittering of stars
stretching from here
to anywhere and somewhere
in the vastness
lays suns and moons
and planets without number,
so all the wonder of His works
hints incalcuble power
and reason without end.
The southern cross and other stars
guides me on the right way
just as sure as His words
is a shining lamp
that sets the path
on which my life should go.
So insignificantly small
I am against the vast universe
and yet He knows my name
and the creator of it all
made man greater
than the beasts
with the ability
to reason, think
and choose
and He loves me
in my humanity.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Light Cones
In the limitless expanse of light
I can see each reflection assayed
Each unseen desire turning from
Being to not-being
The universal eid
Surrounded by countless bright spheres
Ever-expanding hope of orbs
Always getting absorbed in distances
Which perforce have to turn from end to origin
(I can see) the negation of time
The eye of past, present and future
Concentrated on one point of time
In the cone of the epitome of light
All three time zones come for perception.
poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
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I Wrote A Poem With The Stars As My Light
I WROTE A POEM WITH THE STARS AS MY LIGHT
I wrote a poem with the stars as my light
And thought of all the distances between the lines-
If only we could reach one another
But with each message we grow farther apart-
The universe was closer once
And so were we-
But now how great and greater the distances-
One day soon you will pass out of my horizon
And we will be as if we never were-
Even the greatest Love cannot be remembered
If there is not some small light shining still
Between the stars.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Ode To Heaven
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
FIRST SPIRIT:
Palace-roof of cloudless nights!
Paradise of golden lights!
Deep, immeasurable, vast,
Which art now, and which wert then
Of the Present and the Past,
Of the eternal Where and When,
Presence-chamber, temple, home,
Ever-canopying dome,
Of acts and ages yet to come!
Glorious shapes have life in thee,
Earth, and all earth’s company;
Living globes which ever throng
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses;
And green worlds that glide along;
And swift stars with flashing tresses;
And icy moons most cold and bright,
And mighty suns beyond the night,
Atoms of intensest light.
Even thy name is as a god,
Heaven! for thou art the abode
Of that Power which is the glass
Wherein man his nature sees.
Generations as they pass
Worship thee with bended knees.
Their unremaining gods and they
Like a river roll away:
Thou remainest such—alway!—
SECOND SPIRIT:
Thou art but the mind’s first chamber,
Round which its young fancies clamber,
Like weak insects in a cave,
Lighted up by stalactites;
But the portal of the grave,
Where a world of new delights
Will make thy best glories seem
But a dim and noonday gleam
From the shadow of a dream!
THIRD SPIRIT:
Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn
At your presumption, atom-born!
What is Heaven? and what are ye
Who its brief expanse inherit?
What are suns and spheres which flee
With the instinct of that Spirit
Of which ye are but a part?
Drops which Nature’s mighty heart
Drives through thinnest veins! Depart!
What is Heaven? a globe of dew,
Filling in the morning new
Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken
On an unimagined world:
Constellated suns unshaken,
Orbits measureless, are furled
In that frail and fading sphere,
With ten millions gathered there,
To tremble, gleam, and disappear.
CANCELLED FRAGMENTS OF THE ODE TO HEAVEN.
[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]
The [living frame which sustains my soul]
Is [sinking beneath the fierce control]
Down through the lampless deep of song
I am drawn and driven along—
When a Nation screams aloud
Like an eagle from the cloud
When a...
...
When the night...
...
Watch the look askance and old—
See neglect, and falsehood fold...
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The Sing Of A Song Of Life
a song in our eyes
a song in our imagery ears
a song in our hands
a song in our feet
It's a distant song
It's a future song
A song who says
beyond future, beyond distances, beyond nothing,
a song that resembles your life, so tell it
in a song as if you were telling it in a story
poem by Anye'a B. Pinnock
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The Secret of Time and its Passage
Memory defeats passage of time
Hurts and pains enliven passed times and events
In the form of aches, and rarely are enlivened pleasant experiences had;
Anxiety, fear, apprehension constitute the future;
Past and future are thought forms
In the present continuous,
Arising out of earlier experiences,
And doubts and imaginations about the imminent,
Are mere mental projections
In the present;
The present continuously changes
Every one tenth of a second
As a pulse series of awareness
Replacing past dissolving into future;
Events took place and the ones we imagine may happen
Respectively create memory,
And doubts, fears and expectations;
Thus the egoistic mind drawing us into the past or future
And seldom allowing us to live in the present
And enjoy current bliss, peace and silence
Creating whirlpool of time and its passage
Never lets us transcend the notion of time
And its passage;
But the reality is,
Present continuous being
One-tenth of a second,
The past over and the future yet to dawn;
Realization of this secret of
Passage of time, past, present and future
As mere thought forms in the present,
Sets in us peace, bliss and quietude
And we face life cheerfully
Transcending mental suggestions
And enjoy the present in calmness,
Peace, bliss, silence, in unoccupied awareness
As contented and content-free state of mind
poem by Varanasi Ramabrahmam
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Time and Experience
I found the past in my present
I built the future on my past
I found the gift of today
When I thought about what
The future has to offer
Where is the wisdom in experience
If there is no folly in wisdom
What's the real meaning of death
If our spirits live forever
Times never change
But circumstances do
I'll let mystery play with the future
Surprises couple with the present
And experience mourn the past
Because sun always rises from the east
And each day always comes to an end
Experience is not chained to wisdom
Nor is folly tied to bad results
But to the circumstances that burden
Our past, present and future because
Time is always anxious for the future
Experience loves the present
And wisdom never divorces the past
poem by Benaiah Sondashi
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Timeless
All time that we face down here, whether that time is far or near,
Will just become a period behind, as the future comes to mind,
Here, the present, future and past, are periods that will not last,
As all the time we come to see, are just spans towards Eternity.
Eternity is what we have in view, when time will be eternally new,
When we leave our earthly place, where life is in time and space,
As we move into Heaven sublime, with no limit on space or time,
When past and future is no more, and present will forever endure.
A time we now can’t comprehend, but, where we’ll forever spend.
Within an endless realm with Christ, as we enter into Eternal Life,
And timeless will be that place, which we’ll enter by God’s Grace,
Far away from this earthly sphere, of time and space, down here.
That place, that is prepared for us, was prepared by Christ Jesus,
The world’s only timeless man, the architect of God’s eternal plan,
A scope of which we can’t conceive, even those who truly believe,
And never seen by a mortal’s eye; all God has made for you and I.
So I’ll continue in the present time, on hills and valleys yet to climb,
As I move on to that destination, afforded to me through Salvation,
And at times I will contemplate, life with no space or time constraint,
Until I’m changed by God’s Grace, to enter Heaven’s timeless space.
(Copyright ©12/2010)
I Tried To Look At The Sky Tonight
I TRIED TO LOOK AT THE SKY TONIGHT
I tried to look at the sky tonight
As if the stars were lights of other bright worlds
Magical in their beauty
Human in their hope of habitation-
I tried to look at the sky tonight
As if I did not know of
Dark matter and dark energy
Vast galaxies and extreme temperatures
Distances beyond imagining –
I tried to look at the sky tonight
As if I were innocent of all scientific understanding
And could not –
We will never be innocent again
And our longing in looking at the sky
Never be what it once was-
The stars are not the stars anymore
And the heavens not the heavens – either.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Forever
THERE'S NO PRESENT THERE'S NO FUTURE
I DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE PAST
IT'S ALL TIMELESS AND NEVER ENDING
TO TAKE IT IN IT'S ALL TOO VAST
IT GOES - FOREVER AND EVER
YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW BUT YOU NEVER
THERE GOES
TOMMOROW
JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF ETERNITY
JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF ETERNITY
THE TIME IS COMING BUT ALSO GOING
AND IT'S LEAVING NEVER TO RETURN
MAYBE FOREVER IT COULD BE HEAVEN
BUT IF IT'S HELL THEN YOU CAN WATCH ME BURN
IT GOES - FOREVER AND EVER
YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW BUT YOU NEVER
THERE GOES
TOMMOROW
I GOT TO TRAVEL FOREVER
IT'S ALL WITHIN MY MIND
AN ENDLESS PATH TO ENDEAVOUR
BUT FOREVER IS A LONG LONG TIME
THERE'S NO SECRETS AND NO CORRUPTION
IN THE CENTRE OF INFINITY
THERE'S NO LIMITS IN NON-EXISTENCE
AND NO BEGINING TO MY DESTINY
IT GOES - FOREVER AND EVER
YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW BUT YOU NEVER
THERE GOES
TOMMOROW
JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF ETERNITY
JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF ETERNITY
song performed by by Ozzy Osbourne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The World Is Vast
THE WORLD IS SO VAST
The world is so vast-
There are so many things and people in it -
We know there are more stars than people,
And so many times more people than we will ever know-
We know a small part of everything there is
And even that changes
And we know less and more with the years -
What we are is a surprise sometimes
But even then we cannot understand it-
How great God has made the universe or perhaps all the universes
We cannot know –
From our small time in our own small time
Let us love life as best we can
And live as well as we can,
Before our little time in the vastness of time passes
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Kept In Realities Deluded
We...
You and me.
They and others.
Are more the products of a yesterday.
A time that has gone away,
And does not exist.
Than we are affixed,
To a time existing today...
With no history yet,
Can be claimed attached to it.
And many are accused of living in the past.
Few, if any, are accused of living in the future.
And those that are...
Glowing bright as stars,
Seen...
But light years away from where we are,
Just might be...
In their own 'worlds'.
And it seems unfortunate,
That those in this one...
Are addicted to conflict and other drugs,
That keep them kept in realities deluded.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Span
I stand at the center of my span
And watch the river below
It's water's constant moving
Like time it never slows
And as I stand and reflect
Of what lies on either side
On one shore lies what is past
The other what the future hides
If I step back into the past
Could it ever be the same
Can dreams of yesterday
Somehow be maintained
And if I step onto future's shore
Will I be able to find my way
A path unknown to travel
Leading us ever forward into the unseen day
Chained here like a prisoner
Between the two shores I stand
Trapped between past and future
Will I forever stay here on my span
So now the time has come to leave
To future's shore I go
Time always moves forward
Like the waters endless flow
But where this path will lead me
One day I'm sure to know
poem by William Calvert
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Smooth Velvet
Bright stars are coming out
the deep dark sky to light.
Glinting from far above
such blackness to ignite.
They beam towards the earth,
from so many miles away.
Worlds that now are empty
of life. They’ve had their day.
Tapestry of diamonds,
on lush smooth velvet seen.
Sparkling, all these jewels,
with the moon in between.
Twinkling with goldenness,
pin points in the blue.
Shining every night-time,
giving an awesome view.
Bright stars are coming out,
the air is fresh and clear.
No clouds to hide their rays,
they pierce the stratosphere.
The heavens are so vast,
with planets everywhere.
Will earth finally be,
another shooting flare.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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