The Earth Watcher

Friday afternoon,
twilight at the office
my fellow workers gone.
On the monitor is an image of the earth.
In space, a satellite images the world.

In space it spins
like a cyclopes in its cave,
fixing its camera on the earth
with one great eye,
examining the blue ball line by line,
lowering its stare with each turn,
ingesting the view,
then looking into space,
black eye meeting the black scene
until it turns concentration
on the earth again.

There’s intention here,
as if there were a message
written in the ball of clay—
a revelation that the sun glint
reflected more than just glare,
a prophecy that the blue marble will dance,
the sweeping storm clouds advance
like the prows of Viking ships,
wispy shields held before them.

I can see my home from here,
deep in the palm of Wisconsin.
And I can see the ragged arc
that defines our shadow
as we travel toward the night
to view the light of other suns.

I look down,
but I am as humble as the satellite is proud—
a floating mass of soil, sea and air
defining its own space,
its place fixed in the void by the stars,
a buoy of blown glass
drifting in a black sea
as fragile as a ball of clay.

I move close to the screen
and lean toward the earth.
And I remember a story about God
as I breathe on it
for a moment.


—Eric Nelson