Upon reading that Andromeda will one day devour Triangulum and come for us next We know an end
will come. This galaxy
swings with inexorable
force toward another
and this world will
not survive it. We may,
people may, assuming
we have made it out,
one hundred thousand
generations hence?
What will survive of us
today? Our art, we pray?
Those poems scribbled out
that woke us with a start?
Those lightning flashes
we were sure signaled
inspiration? We must go,
infect the universe with
our stories, our beauty.
We must take it with us.
When that day comes,
if we are still a people,
will there be space
for the merely beautiful,
for impractical art?
Let the end be swift,
and we ignorant of it
if we cannot carry it with us.
Let us die thinking
we could be immortal.
Brian Spears
“Upon reading that Andromeda will one day devour Triangulum and come for us next,” a poem by Brian Spears. ©2010 Brian Spears. Used by permission. Collected in A Witness In Exile (Louisiana Literature Press).
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