Another solar concern. I can remember brooding over this problem at the age of about 9, and apparently kids are still worrying about it. I say worrying: I think there’s an element of morbidly scaring yourself for fun.
Before it burns its last, the sun will grow
Becoming a red giant. It will swell
Like a great mushroom. And it will consume
Mercury, and Venus, and then Earth.
We won’t be there. Perhaps we will have gone
Out into space and colonized the stars
And we will watch through telescopes and see
The last days of our old ancestral home.
Or maybe, we will still be there on Earth
Watching the red sun swallow up the sky
Blaming the gods, each other and ourselves
Until, at last, we don’t blame anyone.
Or maybe there will be no one to see
The sun as it expands, then shrinks, then dies.
Perhaps the darkness that it leaves behind
Will blend, unseen, with all the other dark.
Tom Juniper Poetry 