PROLOGUE
His More Serious Work
from The Search for Life in Distant Galaxies
On Saturdays he went to the San Francisco Public Library to read and do research.
He opened a fresh notebook and copied a section from the new National Geographic that had arrived that week:
Mystery Space “Ribbon” Found at Edge of Solar System
“NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, has just produced new images of the solar system that has shocked astronomers. This first full-sized map shows 9 billion miles of atoms surrounding the solar system that scientists are describing as looking like a ribbon. This completely defied expectations: astronomers believed the atoms were evenly distributed rather than densely packed together in this ribbon formation.”
“That could be an unbelievably remarkable coincidence, or it could be a fabulous clue that somehow this external magnetic field is actually imprinting onto our heliosphere through some process that we don’t yet understand.”
He drew a sketch of the data image and later pasted it over his desk beside his drawings of Hubble’s Deep Field and a picture of the SETI project’s Big Array.
He believed there were mysterious connections between his life and life in distant galaxies, that the movement of the universe was mirrored in the streets he inhabited, that the secrets of space and time might be contained in the place that circumscribed his life. He had long ago given up on a grand unified theory of everything, but still believed that seemingly random patterns of places and events were fragments of some larger thought, and that by studying them he might come to understand something of the great unknown.
The idea had begun, in part, with a flash of connectedness on an acid trip in Golden Gate Park in the late sixties. But revealing these phenomena as they wove around him, unraveling their threads, had become his lifelong pursuit.
Over the years, the events of an ordinary life became an epic research project.
He mapped his neighborhood for evidence of collapsing stars, meteor showers, and wormholes linking dimensions that shifted as he moved through the streets. He kept meticulous notes and journals chronicling the phenomena he witnessed in his daily life in the Tenderloin.
He believed this work might illuminate the paradoxes of life on earth—why there was something rather than nothing—and contribute, however modestly, to an understanding of our place in the cosmos. The sacrifices it required seemed to him worthwhile.
He sometimes imagined another life: a scientist, an astronomer working for NASA, part of a team that discovered extraterrestrial life. He wondered what might have happened if he had gone to a real college, found a mentor, made different choices, escaped the circumstances of his past. But that had not been his path. Galileo and Copernicus, he reminded himself, had also known uncertainty, despair, and exile. The thought gave him comfort.
He continued writing in his notebook, this time copying an article from the San Francisco Chronicle:
Dozens of “Earth-Like” Planets Discovered Outside Solar System
“WASHINGTON — Astronomers have found 32 new planets outside our solar system, adding evidence to the theory that the universe has many places where life could develop.”
“Scientists using European Southern Observatory telescopes didn’t find any planets quite the size of Earth or any that seemed habitable or even unusual. But their announcement increased the number of planets discovered outside the solar system to more than 400.”
For some reason this made him think about the lost souls who seemed to orbit the public library. He jotted a memo in the margin to find the maps he had made of the homeless who gathered there.
He would later transcribe these notes into a larger book that became a reference for his Atlas of the Universe, the latest of many ambitious cartographies of suffering he had attempted over the years.
Excerpt from The Search for Life in Distant Galaxies, 2010.
europa (white seam)
white seam
white seam white
light on glass
glass full of light
blue under
blue under blue
a white field
holding its breath
no shore
no shore no
a seam appears
a seam drifts
little open
little open not
the seam stays closed
still the eye follows
white thinning
blue thinning
thin, not broken
under the pale skin
a blue hush
seam in blue blue in seam
white in under
a thought of water
a thought of depth
milky light
thin light
light little light
wanting gathers
at the surface
wanting gathers
where the hand cannot enter
ice
veil
milky-glass
horizon
no shore
for white
no shore
for blue
the image leans forward
the gaze leans with it
under turning
under still turning
still under still
a smooth brightness
teaches longing little open
open little
not open
the seam returns
the gleam returns
again the white silence
again the almost
distance keeps
the surface alive
distance keeps
the hidden thing
from falling into knowledge
europa
glides
cool
luminous
half-open in the mind
a threshold
made of shine
a dream of passage
that never ends
white seam
blue under blue
no shore no
io (red mouth)
red mouth
red mouth red
yellow breath
black field
ash breathing
breathing ash
ash breath ash
heat moving
under the crust
a fissure opens
the air remembers
again
again red
again mouth
smoke lifts
ash drifts sideways
soon every mark
begins to speak
white flare
white in red
white flare white
a stain in the stone
a mouth in the fire the eye cannot rest
the mind cannot cool
pressure gathers
and gathers meaning
skin gives
gives way
way gives way
a flare at the edge
a wound giving light
the surface breaks
into weather
heat no edge
edge no heat
heat where edge was
sulfur wind
burnt gold
a red seam
inside the dark
what comes near
stays near
red after red
ash after ash
again after again
the body reads it
again and again
a sign
a summons
a threat
a beauty too hot
to remain beauty
nothing closes
nothing closes red
nothing closes mouth
io turns
inside its own fever
its voice splits open
its brightness smokes
sulfur dark
yellow dark
burn dark burn
still the plume rises
still the mark returns
again flare
again ash
again red mouth
too near
still turning
red mouth red
white flare white
open, not closing
callisto (dark ring)
dark ring
dark ring dark
heat under fur
heat under the dark
dust over
dust over dust
a mark carried inward
a mark learning silence
night keeps it
the body keeps it
no witness
no witness now
a pelt of shadow
a mouth of ash
little ash little
little buried light
what was touched
goes dim
what was named
goes feral
crater light
bruise light
ash of light
light as ash
from far away
the surface is calm
surface closing
closing surface
closing by dark
come near
scar after scar
a small buried ember
breathing in blackness
buried little light
little buried
less light less
the old wound
changes skins
dark remaining
ring remaining
dark by remaining
stone sleep
sleep stone
stone sleep stone
it circles there
slowly
under weather
under law
under dark fur
under dust under
under the long patience
of concealment older ring
older dark
older still there
distance gathers
around the hidden center
distance becomes shelter
distance becomes form
callisto
keeps its dim glow
a dark body
made of afterimage
made of warmth
that remains
after refusal
after dark
after dust over dust
dark ring
dust over dust
still there dim
ganymede (blue groove)
blue groove
blue groove blue
pale bands of frost
long lines of light
held light
light held
held in blue
a hand lifted
a vessel lifted
the air arranged
by gesture
nothing spills
nothing spills nothing
a summons travels
through stillness
desire takes form
in the offering
a place is prepared
a path is prepared
line returns
returns line
long line returns
this way
this way
returns this way
the grooves say it softly
across the white body
green hush
green at poles
pole hush green
the sign gleams
the cup gleams
meaning passes
from hand to hand
blue holding blue
groove holding groove
held light held
a measured hush
a ceremonial distance
cold vessel
vessel cold
cold carrying cold
the one who carries
is changed by carrying
the one who serves
brightens in service upward carried
carried upward
upward held
again the lifting
again the turn of the wrist
nothing spills from blue
nothing spills from cold
nothing spills from line
again the quiet interval
before reception
the chant returns
the order returns
long return
returning long
line by return
each repetition
adds a little light
ganymede remains
pale
grooved
attentive
a moon of passage
a moon of bearing
where distance
becomes relation
where relation
becomes
a quiet music
green hush
held light
blue groove again
coda
four moons
one turning
white seam
red mouth
dark ring
blue groove
the pale threshold
the wound of fire
the hidden ember
the lifted vessel
desire moves there
through shine
through heat
through dark
through form
a weather of distance
a weather of return
under the great body
everything circles
under the great turning
everything continues
the bright thing withdraws
the burning thing speaks
the buried thing glows
the carried thing sings
and we go on
looking upward
following
what does not open
what does not cool
what does not end
following
what keeps
its pull