We stand in brilliant light.

Coveted by generations our memories have long forgotten, it collects and dances around us –

refracting into splendour

as it illumines places

once fit

only as the habitations of that great and fearsome

monster of our imaginings –

That Which is Not Known.

Once mere slivers invading the darkness,

the light now cascades in sheets

of glory over the wide

expanse of the natural world,

stretching

our understanding

in equal measure

by “too big”

and “too small” to see.

Yet even showers of this unprecedented radiance

cannot conquer the

unruly beast of the unknown.

Tethered to the confines of our own realities,

we cannot rule what we do not know nor can we let it be.

So we poke and prod and posit our way

through ideas and possibilities, hypotheses and half-born dreams

to truths another generation may reveal

that we – our memory

long forgotten –

might be the source of even a single shimmer

of the brilliant light in which they’ll stand.