Dwelled Planet

I thought at one point, if you could be up in heaven, this is how you would see the planet. And then I dwelled on that and said, no, it’s more beautiful than that. This is what heaven must look like. I think of our planet as a paradise. We are very lucky to be here. – Astronaut Mike Massimino

Few people have watched
decades in perspective,
deep and peeking from history’s
star-studded sea, or seen
the sun shrink til at one point
it was human: rarified
and alone in very thought
of what heaven could be.
Fewer face a wristwatch
easily, see that curved
horizon as a bulk-24 growing
in the gravity. No, it’s more
beautiful smaller, I must think.
Bound by inescapably
precious orbit and biology,
most of us can’t step outside
here into space-flight. Cut off
from distance, the rocketed
view from our Earth-side
paradise is nearly impossible, only
we cosmic people larger than life.

-Laura Scheffler Morgan 3/7/18

This poem is a Found Poem, using only words, rearranged, from the above opening quote and first paragraph of National Geographic’s article, ‘Beyond the Blue Marble’ by Nadia Drake, which appears originally as follows:

For the bulk of human history, it’s been impossible to put Earth in cosmic perspective. Bound by gravity and biology, we can’t easily step outside it, above it, or away from it. For most of us, Earth is inescapably larger than life. Even now, after nearly six decades of human spaceflight, precious few people have rocketed into orbit and seen the sun peeking out from behind that curved horizon. Since 1961, a mere 556 people have had this rarefied experience. Fewer, just 24, have watched Earth shrink in the distance, growing smaller and smaller until it was no larger than the face of a wristwatch. And only six have been completely alone behind the far side of the moon, cut off from a view of our planet as they sailed in an endlessly deep, star-studded sea.