Patmos

An image of the Horse Head Nebulae Region by Bobby Middleton

Patmos
~ Mark Jarman

On a clear day you can see dark matter --
And still not know what you are looking at.
Or turn and see the simple heavens shatter
And make themselves into an alphabet
Of riddles wrapped inside mysteries
Inside enigmas, coming from deep space.
What do you do when everything's a sign
And the goatskin of the universe uncaps
And pours its missing mass out like a wine?
I saw the script that glares inside rubbed eyes.
I felt the infrastructure of the face
That will endure through empires collapse.
I was astonished, I could hardly speak,
And wrote it all down afterwards, in Greek.