Sestina Day 23: Wonders

This is not the sestina I intended to write.

At all.

I love Professor Brian Cox and Wonders Of The Universe, and I think space is cool. Actually, no. I think atomic design, and science fiction, and astrology based folklore are cool. Space itself IS kind of… daunting.
But what I did mean to do was find another NaPoWriMo writer and harvest one of their poems for keywords.
I ended up picking the blog Rants From A Starving Writer because I liked the title.
The poem I picked is lovely, and nothing like the lanky brat it spawned.

You can see the lovely gentleman in question here.

 
Have you been watching it on BBC –
Cox, and the Wonders of the Universe?
That man can talk for hours of nothingness.
But then rewards us with a supernova.
He tells us of the births and deaths of stars
As if they lived and breathed, and as for moons,

I don’t think he has been to any moons,
Not even ours, and yet he seems to see
Them intimately. When he speaks of stars,
It’s like he’s chatting up the universe.
He’s like a lovestruck teen, that supernova
His schoolboy crush. He dotes on nothingness.

I cannot comprehend that nothingness.
They frighten me, those cold and barren moons.
There’s nothing cute about a supernova.
But in his gentle smile I start to see
At least, why he so loves the universe
And why his eyes are always on the stars.

Myself, I’d rather candlelight than stars
Lit up the vast and empty nothingness.
That’s not good physics, and the universe
Can’t work like that. Just like those stony moons
Aren’t made of cheese.  Still I would rather see
(Up close) a firework than a supernova.

Yes, Brian, I can see your supernova.
It’s very nice.  Now tidy up your stars
And nebulae, and planets and you’ll see
That this small globe, floating in nothingness
Is big enough. We don’t need all those moons.
And you’ll touch no part of the universe

Except our corner of the universe
Why do you need to see a supernova?
There’s smiles down here, as bright as all your moons
And flowers sweeter than your distant stars.
Why are you smitten by the nothingness?
When there’s so much to touch and smell and see…

For all the moons in all the universe
You won’t be here to see it when the stars
All supernova into nothingness.