We live within a universe so vast
we never will perceive its full extent.
Because there are horizons that are past
the span light can speed in the firmament,
parts of the cosmos will be forever
beyond possible communication.
As fast as light, we’ll still reach them never,
for they have greater acceleration.
We here who are within it
can’t exceed light’s pace in space,
such efforts will be vexed.
Our universe grows faster than light-speed,
so isolates one portion from the next.
We cannot know that,
there,
physical laws apply or
that effect
still follows cause.
Chosen for special recognition by NASA, James Ph. Kotsybar is the first poet to be published to another planet. His haiku currently orbits Mars aboard the MAVEN spacecraft, appears in the mission log of The Hubble Space Telescope, and was featured at NASA’s Centaur Art Challenge at IngenuityFest, Ohio. Last Summer, he performed his poetry before an international audience of scientists, journalists and actual Troubadours in their founding city of Toulouse, France, at the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF2018) by invitation and has been invited back to ESOF2020 to be held in Trieste, Italy. Most recently he has had poems published in The Bubble, Askew, The Society of Classical Poets, LUMMOX Press, Sixfold, Mason’s Road, Encore and Scifaikuest, and has received honors from The State Poetry Society of Michigan and the Balticon 48 Poetry Competition. He especially enjoys science poetry, because of its extended shelf-life.
