Do you believe in ghosts? (a poem)

The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest

(Vonnegut said that)

Such a big place is, of course, 

made up of many, many things

As far as we’re told

Light 

is the fastest of all those things 

Even so, they tell us it takes the fastest thing of all 

something like 8 minutes to reach Earth

from the nearest star

Gaze up at the sun

That’s what it looked like 8 minutes ago… 

You’re accepting warmth from a memory

Sunbathing in the past

Distant stars?

Those big enough, luminous enough 

to be seen by human eyes?

That’s what they looked like 

perhaps 10 or 15 thousand years ago

That glow you see or think you see

was originally generated just after the last

Ice Age

Back when cave painting was a thing

When the fertile crescent was still fertile

That shine is a memory

That shine may also be a ghost

A few of those stars, they say, are dead

Imploded long ago,

swallowed up into a black hole

A black hole still offering

a glimmer of just enough hope 

that a wish 

may come true…

—Mickey Z. (2015)