The Milky Way is dwarfed
by the Coma cluster.
But there is plenty here.
Arms extending and twirling,
their fingertips light-years away.
Perseus to Centaurus,
cutting through the one sun we know.
The clouds are not spheres
or cotton bundles.
They are precise in their changing
geometry—just like a protractor
and a compass performing
a dance of lines and angles.
The beach that coves and carves,
the coastline that hides
lovers and contraband,
that forms continents
in the eight minutes it takes
to rocket to the arms-length
low Earth’s orbit, is part of it.
Back on Earth.
Snowflakes do not flake.
Each one exacting in its
crystalline geometry,
each one.
Lightning does not strike—
it etches the sky in a flash,
leaving the seared air molecules in place,
just out of sight.
The cauliflower—no, not
a flower. The humble cauliflower
is a whole universe of fractals.
The seashell that you spot
in the sand, that you grab
and toss casually.
If your eye could penetrate,
if your eye could spiral
like a diminutive snail,
you would see the careful orchestration
of its disciplined nature—
the sequence that chooses
to remain bound in convergence,
with disdain for infinity.
First appeared in Star*Line (Issue 48.3, Summer 2025)