Childhood's End

The extraordinary
is wanting for attention...

Each day we strive
within the ordinary range of things
to merely keep up...

Cooperation is fine
as is the crowd...
but it's not the ordinary
within that scheme
that extends any boundaries...
that stirs greater emotions
and intellect...
that by some strength
and enduring pursuit
moves the mass of which it is part...

The ordinary dies every day...
The extraordinary dies infrequently...

--------------------

Soltaire
the artist knew this
and thought of it often
in his art and life...
as he considered the strength
within his brains
and his fingers...

As he dreamed of black holes
and new combinations of matter...
his art evolved...
his thoughts stretched...

There were some
who said his art was the cutting edge...
There were some who said...no
the cutting edge
was left behind...

He thought of how stuff
poured into black holes
and poured out again...
perhaps appearing at every point
within the galaxy...
within the hearts of atoms...

As his own art
grew too distant for human interest
and consumption
he withdrew from contacts...
from the view of others...

He considered the extraordinary
within possibilities
he guessed and sensed...
His mind's muscle
was stretched...
he considered how
to rearrange the planets...

His old friends recognized
his absence after several weeks...
and called
and stopped
and notified the police...
who knew of his eccentricities...

This was not unusual
they thought
he would turn up somewhere
in California
or New York
or wherever...

And they considered
how he must have driven
from their midst
silently
with a huge truck
for his art and materials
to be completely gone...

He left no trace
and he left no goodbye...
they thought...

Someone commented
in jest
how his departure coincided
with the emergence
of the new planet...

It had been hidden
scientists reported...
by a quirk of the Sun...
It had been there all along...
not very large and
with eccentric path...

The coincidence was
just that of course...

How did he leave
some thought...
without a trace...
so secretly...

The new planet had
extraordinary qualities
the scientists reported...
which was merely natural
they said
due to its relationship
to the sun...

Its eventual disappearance
was also expected by some
so they reported...
and no one should have been surprised
when it vanished...
as the thing was so peculiar
and possessed
such strange properties...

It left new considerations
and theories
and wonderment...

Without a trace
they reported
when no one was watching...

And there were black holes
and matter emerged everywhere
he knew...
Soltaire
saw stuff as it emerged
in the hearts of atoms...

and he considered
how the ordinary dies everyday...
and the extraordinary dies infrequently...

And the scientists
could not explain
the shifting path of Jupiter
and Saturn
and Mars
and the Earth...

There was some force
some power they thought...
some reaching into the atoms of things...

And they considered the extraordinary...
They considered the impossible...

G.J.G June-July 1989/99

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