The Phantom Galaxy

Can you get your mind around
Near one-hundred billion stars
Thirty-two million light years

Away from where these phrases
Have bumped into you, on Earth,
We’ll presume? Of course you can’t.

What’s the good of knowing facts
One can never comprehend?
They make beautiful pictures.

The Phantom Galaxy’s there,
In all its spiral glory,
First eyeballed through telescopes,

Pixelated by Hubble.
Maybe it is instructive
Just to admit the vastness,

Admit incomprehension.
Perspective, yes. Perspective
Puts the world in perspective.

Does it? On a cloudy day
In the desert, checking chores
To be completed by noon?