I'm not going to read you all of the Hubble pieces,
but they're over there if you want
to investigate them further.
So this is another one called Pillars of Creation.
This is the Eagle Nebula.
And in the Eagle Nebula there are these great plumes of gas
that look like Monument Valley, if you've ever visited,
so we recognize things of our own experience
when we look at these deep space images that
have no intent of mirroring the things
that we mirror upon them.
Pillars of Creation.
The patterns of becoming encoded in interstellar gas--
our echo of destruction, time-lapse and aftermath.
Pillars of star birth fused to slow hand and spire of Monument
Valley--
those cleaved, precarious strata writing--
rising from the dust of siltstone oxidized.
The sunset streaked furious beyond.
Or, these pillars are the silver nitrate preservation,
charred vestige of conflagration:
the jagged cinders of Chicago's stone
and construct when chaos consumed all that would feed
and flash the fire's dervish.
Understanding is rote superimposition--
images stacked like books in the mess, each edge of embrace,
each mistake.