Such Solitude

for Michael Collins

That dark hour seemed like a lifetime:

cut off from Mission Control, I floated
in soundless limbo with black holes
and shy stars behind a judgmental moon

that curved inwards like the scoop of a spoon.

When time and weight no longer rate,
you are free to taste immortality.
The immeasurable shape, breadth and depth

of the veiled universe hurts both the eyes

and the mind: a bottomless well
of watery nebulae that would drown
the strongest swimmer. For a stolen hour

I was the loneliest soul in the whole

universe, my own existence questioned
through separation from three point something
billion sentient beings back on Earth.

All things lose their worth when held up against

the sheer unending sprawl of the astral plain:
grains of sand in an elongated glass,
pricks on heads of minuscule pins,

shallow breaths in a hurricane.