Vox Populi
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Ace Boggess: Ultra Deep Field
“Whenever we don’t understand something, we call it dark.”
—Father Corbally of the Vatican Observatory
.
to free eyes from the keyholes of the skull
give them feet for walking crystal ladders
how better to seek out the Infinite
than exploring farthest bubble edges of the finite?
what appear to be stars are galaxies so distant
no one thought to look
so much to measure in these shaded fascinations
wherever the Artist scattered paint
polishing a long lens more delicate than skin
the Franciscan nods as he announces “I don’t know”
the human answer not the holiest: “don’t know”
he says to questions about life destruction some space-
booted intergalactic one true God “I don’t know”
his light heart full with unseen matter
.
Ace Boggess is a freelance writer and editor living in Charleston, West Virginia. He is the author of three books of poetry: Ultra Deep Field, The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Notre Dame Review, Lumina, Mid-American Review, River Styx, Rattle, North Dakota Quarterly, and hundreds of other journals. He received a fellowship from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and spent five years in a West Virginia prison. But that’s another story.
Copyright 2017 Ace Boggess. From Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2017). First published in Wilderness House Literary Review. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
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The terrain of this poem is layered, complex. Yes, at the bubble edges of the universe there’s the big “I don’t know.” Ace Boggess is a wonderful poet. Thanks for posting.
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