The Motion of the Earth

Neb

 

The Motion of the Earth

A day with sky so wide,

So stripped of cloud, so scrubbed, so vacuumed free

Of dust, that you can see

The earth-line as a curve, can watch the blue

Wrap over the edge, looping round and under,

Making you wonder

Whether the dark has anywhere left to hide.

But the world is slipping away; the polished sky

Gives nothing to grip on; clicked from the knuckle

The marble rolls along the gutter of time --

Earth, star and galaxy

Shifting their place in space.

Noon, sunset, clouds, the equably varying weather,

The diffused light, the illusion of blue,

Conceal each hour a different constellation.

All things are new

Over the sun, but we,

Our eyes on our shoes, go staring

At the asphalt, the gravel, the grass at the roadside, the door-

step, the doodles of snails, the crochet of mortar and lime,

Seeking the seeming familiar, though every stride

Takes us a thousand miles from where we were before.

Norman Nicholson

(A bit of wishful thinking. I haven't seen a day "stripped of cloud" for ages. And I do realize that the photo is anything but cloudless. But clouds are interesting.) This poem reminds me of the feeling I used to get when swinging on the big swing at the playground. I was fine until I looked up into the sky, and then the earth fell away, and the sky was so wide and deep, I felt as if I were falling into it instead of rising - and my stomach did a flip so that I would have to look at the ground quick in order to catch my breath. The poem too, disturbs my equilibrium. But I appreciate that phrase "the seeming familiar", it might not be the heart of the poem, but it seems like it to me.