My very first published poem was in Inscape Journal. I remember I was terribly disappointed that the journal switched from print to an online format only with my issue as this meant I would have no physical copy to treasure and share with others.
However, I’m grateful that an online archive has been maintained, because that is how I am able to discuss this marvelous 2011 poem by Carmen Sophia Cutler, “A Wider Universe than Yesterday.”
The poem opens with a cosmic bang with the sudden personal revelation, “There are, now, worlds coming into being” in the same amount of time it would take one to consume “a peach.”
According to the Almighty Google, the Earth is “181,944 times larger than the diameter of an average peach.” Yet this poem explores how even the mundane act of eating this small golden orb can spangle the human imagination to the edge of creation.
The playful juxtaposition between a humble fruit and the birth of planets spurs Cutler to declare, “What immeasurable options knitting the stars.” The sensory overload of this sidereal realization elicits a more jubilant cry from deeper within—
“alleluia, alleluia
in voices too sweet for sound.”
Then, the poet adds a single italicized line that reminds us of Mary’s timid, but hopeful inquiry in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved work, The Secret Garden:
"may I have a bit of earth?"
The reader is drawn back to the garden, to stellar nurseries, to beginnings, as Cutler reframes her mortal journey in a fragile dance of human limbs:
“because I have been practicing—
balancing books on my perfect princess head.”
Aren’t we all practicing, too? And dropping books right and left! Yet still, we pick up the pieces of the day, the shards of ourselves, and try again.
Maybe I’m overthinking this poem. Maybe I’ll never catch every facet no matter how many times I roll all the lines over in my head. I’m just glad I stumbled upon such a jewel in the ink! And I hope more people will read and love it now, as well.
I would be grateful to one day send the author a note of thanks for the lasting impression their poem has left on me after all these years, but so far, I have been unsuccessful in that regard.
It’s a curious thing in this digital age to wonder just how many humans cast their most precious words out into the online ocean, never knowing who will find their fragile bottle of soul glass. Or who will unravel the coiled scraps tucked inside and read each glimmering syllable in quiet wonder.
It’s also strange and unsettling to think about just how easy it is for all these cyber ribbons of brilliance to vanish when an online publication shuts down. I’ve lost more than one published poem to sudden virtual death . . . .
Life is still shockingly ephemeral despite the powerful digital glow that lulls us under its trance with promises of eternal recordance/remembrance. Nothing is forever in the entire universe. The last luscious bite of a peach, the wide orbit of a world, the implosion of a star—the whole of every experience is bound by linear time.
And the random gift of words from one complete stranger to another who will likely never, ever meet on this Earth? Pretty amazing. I hope I never take for granted that we live in such an Age of Astonishments! So thank you, Carmen, for the gift of your stelliferous poem.
Work Cited
Cutler, Carmen Sophia (2011). “A Wider Universe Than Yesterday.” Inscape Journal.
<https://inscape.byu.edu/2011/11/16/a-wider-universe-than-yesterday/>
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