The Poetry Stash: 15November2024

But We Had Music by Maria Popova

Today’s selection is the animated poem “But We Had Music” a collaboration between Maria Popova, Daniel Bruson and Nick Cave. The poem, written by Maria Popova, is read by Nick Cave for The Universe in Verse. To view and listen to the animated poem, click here.

But We Had Music by Maria Popova

Right this minute
across time zones and opinions
people are
making plans
making meals
making promises and poems

while

at the center of our galaxy
a black hole with the mass of
four billion suns
screams its open-mouth kiss
     of oblivion.

Someday it will swallow
Euclid’s postulates and the Goldberg Variations,
swallow calculus and Leaves of Grass.

I know this.

And still
when the constellation of starlings
flickers across the evening sky,
it is     enough

to stand here
for an irrevocable minute
     agape with wonder.

It is     eternity.

Prompts:

1.	Begin with “at the center of our galaxy”
2.	Begin with “Right this minute”
3.	Title a poem with a conjunction like “but”.
4.	Draft a poem that includes scientific terms

5. Photo by Iceberg San via pexels.com. Use the image as a writing prompt.

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