The Remoteness

Having lived your life up close
And personal, not only
Dragging around one body

Dragging you around with it,
But largely confined to one
Species, one era, one Earth,

You’ve come to think perspective
Is distant and abstracted
If you take a few steps back.

You’ve no idea how remote
You really are, or can be.
Every day, the telescopes

Churn out updated pictures
Of galaxies, and you nod.
Nice images, fine spirals,

Very large and far away,
Yes. This is the remoteness,
Your perspective on billions

Of star systems, which for now
You’re still free to imagine
As uninhabited dots.

What have you to say for them?
What are your observations?
Likewise, what might you remark

About the lives you know live
Multiple generations,
Thousands of generations

Every few days in your guts?
They, too, are the remoteness,
The distance you can’t but keep

On the miniature worlds
You host, never mind the worlds
Your friends and family host,

The many-petalled, spiral
Melodramas in the dark
Interior of someone

You met once and considered
Interesting enough to write
Something personal about.