Webb’s first deep field image, showing the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it was approximately 13 billion years ago. Credit…NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
Auguries of Innocence
BY WILLIAM BLAKE
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
It is, we are told, a grain-of-sand view,
A heavenly purview,
This fish-bowl image of the universe.
A James Webb telescopic picture of the sky.
Unfolding before us this morning in July.
A myriad galaxies, with myriads of stars.
Far from our own galaxy, Jupiter, and Mars.
So striking in their beauty and mystery.
So incomprehensibly comprehensible
So indispensably dispensable.
It feels godlike to hold infinity in one’s mind,
And glimpse eternity in a single frame.
These may be the auguries of innocence,
As Blake said so long ago,
Brought about by human intent, though.
This unique view of the face of God.
Both mystical and real.
Is at once natural and surreal.
I cannot comprehend the distances shown,
Nor guess the mysteries of this unknown.
I cannot fathom something so sublime,
Nor understand the compressed time.
I cannot grasp the science at its source,
Nor know the future course.
I see excitement and giddiness
In those who brought it into being.
As they grasp the future they’re foreseeing.
It’s a doorway to a playground
Of future possibilities,
Of unlimited capabilities and imagination,
Of contact with other civilizations.
A fresh dawning for the human mind,
Offering a new path for humankind.
