for Carl ….





for Dr. Carl Sagan

( 1934 – 1996 )





when you visited us each week,

                    stirring wonder in all,
billions of synapses fired,

         or according to my teachers at the time,

         misfired!


        
                           and yet you comforted us,

                          your reason,

             logic,

                       and,
                dedication to the facts and always,

          

                              always

            to the science,

               and to science,
mentored us.



… and so as you left us here on this pale blue dot,


                you still live in the starstuff,


the stuff of life,

                                     mingling with the infinite depths of the cosmos,

                      

                      and as you taught us,

                          that there are more stars in the universe than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of earth,
                               still your vision lives within us all,

                       a testament to your humanism,

                    your genius,

             your warmth and all that you left behind,
& that, that humanity of yours,
             shall live on in the imagination of this speck of starstuff,

                as it floats,

                on the vastness of the great cosmic ocean …