We Astronomers

- Rebecca Elson

We astronomers are nomads,
Merchants, circus people,
All the earth our tent.

We are industrious.
We breed enthusiasms,
Honour our responsibility to awe.

But the universe has moved a long way off.
Sometimes, I confess,
Starlight seems too sharp,

And like the moon
I bend my face to the ground,
To the small patch where each foot falls,

Before it falls,
And I forget to ask questions,
And only count things.

-- "Responsibility to Awe", Oxford Poets, Carcanet Press (2001)
Estate of Rebecca Elson; Anne Berkeley and Angelo di Cintio