Human Letters

Black Holes and Professors

Jonah and the Whale (Portugal, 2025)

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Human Letters

My friend the professor of human letters
says he often finds death a comfort.
He is a wise and humane friend.

As for myself, I find life a comfort
amidst the grand inhuman sublimities
one often reads in ancient doom-scrolls.

For example, they say Jonah was eaten
by a fish, or a whale, or his pride
depending on who’s asking.

And yesterday I was reading
about a new, supermassive hole
that has been collapsing all this time

falling, while I was making tea
into itself, and while you are reading
these words, falling, grasping all light

and when I die, it will be falling
for you, in love, or a dirty old trick
like hope, I hope, though never sure—

only I must cut this discourse on method
short, as now I hear the kettle boiling
which is, as I say, a kind of comfort.

-

The Behemoth (NASA, 2025)

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