SOHO image of the SunI accepted the sun, eyes squeezed,
Basking like a skink,
Taking that hot backwash,
Wave on wave.

Suddenly everything shivered,
And I felt the sound:
Thundering, roaring,
Deep in my bones.

It was the sound that none
Of us has ever heard,
Below whisper, below tinnitus,
Not a gasp in the vacuum.

Yet here’s the confusion
Of fusion explosions,
Neverending, blinding,
Deafening, deadening.

Here’s the birth of all life,
The origin of worlds,
The furnace of existence –
All the loudness that never was.

I stopped my ears and screamed.
I swallowed photons dancing
The insane dance of suns
In the cinder cone of my skull.

Copyright © 2007, Robert Lebling

Image Credit: SOHO (ESA & NASA)

Robert W. Lebling is a writer/editor based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He holds a degree in politics and a certificate in anthropology from Princeton University. He is author with Donna Pepperdine of Natural Remedies of Arabia (London: Stacey International, 2006).