Cosmos: A Poem

Practice Bombing

10 PRACTICE BOMBING Emerald Isle, N.C. At first inside the beach house I think it is a giant scraping of timbers together—but construction— at night? Then outside I see flashings on the horizon, brightenings as with lightning but the stars shine clear. Then airborne motors rumble their blades, they beat distant winds where something is crumpling the air, smashings as of homes collapsing like cardboard boxes underfoot of Paul Bunyan and his ox. But machines and their men are bombing the far river. I remember, we were told. Blasts flare tissue-soft over the pine trees, as the lag of concussions places safety within the many miles between us. This is my country practicing destruction. The old couple who watched from their Ford from the last century as the real estate agent departed are too late to sell their almost seaside cottage for a fortune. Cassiopeia is spangling its splayed W toward the pole, the Pleiades shine on like a swarm of golden bees, Hercules and Pegasus have rarely heard such fuss from our invisible planet since Fat Man and Little Boy incinerated two cities. O Vega pierce us with your blue beam arrow, O Orion lay down our swords. They burn on, blue and white—or reddish, Mars-like, iron-making giants, inconstant as we are, inheritors of heavenly war— of self-sacrifice to the violent constellations. ...