Galileo cannot sleep,
haunted by those things
he may not know,
discoveries revealed by God,
that man would burn him for.
Galileo cannot sleep,
for swearing lies
against the truth
revealed each night
in heaven's dome.
He cannot sleep,
his life's work mocked,
as cursing his own arrogance,
he weeps an old man's tears.
He does not understand why God
would show these mysteries to him,
then stand aside
to let his servants
cut him down.
Each day he paces
cold stone floors,
a prisoner in Arcetri,
made humble by
the reading of the Psalms.
It was the Psalms
which stole his sleep,
and fueled his guilt,
and haunted all his waking days.
"On its foundation," one Psalm said,
"the Lord has set the Earth."
"It cannot move," the same Psalm said,
and so that sword was now suspended,
hanging over Galileo's head.
Galileo cannot sleep.
The ghosts of Kepler
and Copernicus
shake their heads in disappointment,
as the old man grits his teeth.
Galileo cannot sleep.
"It cannot move," the Psalm persists,
and echoes through the empty room,
where sleepless still,
the old man lies.
"It cannot move," the church insists.
"And yet it moves!" the broken man replies,
as finally with no more secrets left to keep,
the man of science
smiles to God,
and drifts toward his
now well-earned sleep.
YOU ARE READING
A Mind's Eye
PoetryA collection of poems grown from myth and mind. Gods, monsters, and mortal men in a variety of poetic forms. Narratives and allegories as deeply rooted in the psyches of modern humanity, as in the civilizations that planted those seeds. Songs from d...
