Incandescent Days

Incandescent Days

Incandescent days beneath a nuclear globe,

Worshipped from days long gone,

Creating green explosions on the crust.

No gods to implore but iron to rust

And chemistry to leave within the dust.

Hydrogen to helium

And energy to burn

Upon the mantle of our shelf

As quarks are rearranged

To radiate through space

And illuminate ourselves.

Excited electrons create the air

As pigments dance in ecstasy

To where

They are passed to the chemistry

That dares

To change its state.

For change is the law

And all our fate.

Opher 3.7.2015

Incandescent Days

This planet revolves around the sun. In man’s earliest days it was a thing of wonder, bringing light, heat and life. It had to be a God and was worshipped. The beliefs were that the rituals could unlock and control the powers it possessed.

Our ancestors were wrong in many respects but, even so, the sun is the giver of all life.

The sun’s heat was sufficient to melt ice and liberate vapor. Water is the medium of all living things. None can live without it.

The sun’s light caused photosynthesis to produce the oxygen we breathe and liberate our thoughts. With the energy it donated to us we dissected its secrets and learnt that it was no god and our powers could not touch it.

Life is change. With each day our bodies transform from egg and sperm to death. In millennia we evolve. And the sun itself must change. The giver of life will one day turn destroyer but its passing may produce life for others to evolve on distant worlds.

For we are the stuff of exploding stars.

Sun worship makes sense to me; at least you can see it!

Poetry – Worship

Worship

I’m going to worship the sun.

At least it is real.

I can feel it on my face.

I can see it in the sky.

The sun is not imaginary;

Not an invention.

It gives me light.

It gives me heat.

It gives me life.

I do not need to talk to it in a cave,

Or on any mountain top,

Or in any wilderness.

The sun appears before everyone.

It does not make demands on me,

Or gives me lists of things I must not do,

Or lists of things I must do,

Things I have to wear,

Things I must not eat.

The sun is kind it merely gives expecting nothing in return.

I do not have to pray to it to make it shine.

It just shines.

It does not know that I exist.

It does not care.

It does not threaten me with eternal torture,

Or promise me eternal pleasure.

It came from the same place as me.

It made the atoms of my body.

It will die like me.

I am happy with the sun.

It will do very nicely.

Opher – 17.4.2021

Just imagine for one minute that there is no god.

Doesn’t that make a mockery of all the fantastic effort and sacrifices people all over the world have made?

Yet we can’t see this god. He rarely answers our prayers – if ever.

Why is it that only a certain few people have ever claimed to have spoken to god and received instructions from him? And always alone in caves, up mountains or in wildernesses.

Why is god so shy?

Why does this god give different, and very precise, instructions to different people?

Will wearing a veil, eating pork or beef, wearing a turban or devoutly praying really make that difference to him?

I always laugh when some who is saved from disaster thanks god. They never ask why god allowed the disaster in the first place or why he didn’t save the equally worthy people who died in the disaster.

If we have to worship something I’ll settle for the sun. The sun’s good enough for me. It’ll do for now. I might eventually transfer my allegiance to the moon though. She’s more mysterious.