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Asked to find space in my day
To write some words on space
I found I could not find the space.

Events crowd on apace
But the space between them remains elusive.
Perhaps there is no such thing as space.
Galaxies in their unending motion race
Through a carapace of emptiness – the vast
In which once hung an infinitely small and heavy marble
Preternaturally hot, but scarcely intrusive
In the abundant nothingness that robed it round.
After the bang, all things burst forth to blow
Across the emptiness and make it glow,
Cooling at last no doubt
And... spacing out.

But note: there is still a good deal more of what isn’t than what is.
Nothingness increases. What is remains obstinately static.
An un-increasing cache of lumber in an ever-widening attic
Pitted with holes, that suck what passes
Into some other place
To meld and jar with other masses,
Where strange dark matter or more space
Await the unwary.
And yet the matter’s volume cannot not vary.

So what do I derive
From the slight corner where I briefly thrive?

Across the void, essence must seek one face,
One voice, one touch –
And only one:
Yes, in the summer fields by the Gard, I have seen that much:
Seen sunflowers by the springs that form their race
Swing round on stems that yearn toward the sun.
Thus all that are, like them, for good or ill
Seek for that space that only One can fill,
And since I am, it follows I am such:
This is my space, enough being here to hold me -
As I look out, enfold me.

© Colin Bailey, August 2009