Atheist Creation

An expanse
Rolling, swirling clouds of black
Absent of all sound
Only the cushioned blow of overwhelming emptiness
Not the comfort of another
Nor the presence of emotion
Devoid of all life and light

Then, suddenly, without expectation or lingering hesitation
Blinding light rips through the black
Tearing away the emptiness
Busting the silence with roaring sound
Abandoning calm for chaos
The long ago nothing
Pouring over with matter, energy, and thunder

Like great waves of fire
Particles and gasses churn and collide
Raging heat devours infinity
As time and space begin to bend
Violence is the first name provided for this place
But it is only a blink in eternity
And impossibly distant from the end

From the flaming kiln
Elements begin to take their form
Materials mass together as gas and dust collect in pluming nebula
The roaring wind withers and gives way to creation
Stars erupt from the plumes and planets establish their orbit
Disorder diminishes as unmarked galaxies drift and expand
Into swimming lights and fading warmth

Millennia ease on as the sifting sands settle
Lights and cosmos stretch farther than can be imagined
But in one forgotten corner of this roiling expanse
Exists a lonely blue rock
As its surface cools from the long past fires
Rains and atmosphere wrap around its surface
And life leaps out of solid ground

Confounded organisms divide
Multiplying and soon encompassing their freshly primed world
Beasts roam and rage for centuries but eventually
Reason and emotion rises from the teeming creatures
One species to claim dominion
But this new intelligence revives long defeated chaos
He calls himself Man

With emotion’s presence comes self-image
Man’s reason and ego are mixed
And he calls himself Ruler of this roiling expanse
His delusions give him a false mind set
And he believes no less than his immortality
He destroys the beasts of his world and conquers all in his grasp
But Man is unsatisfied
Soon he turns his sword upon himself

Fire races across Man’s world
A new and terrible act of hatred called war
His ability for destruction is astounding
His ability for violence unparalleled and unmatched
Man’s own blood flows through the dried rivers and seas
His cries fill the burning atmosphere
As he is consumed by his own effect

The lonely blue rock remains barren and wasted
Chaos is squelched once again with the loss of Man’s presence
And the fires are silent once more
Order restored, law abides
Not even the memory of His collapse
Remains etched in the ever changing surface of the expanse
His effect dissolved by the swimming lights and fading warmth

Note that I am not an Atheist and do not agree with the Big Bang Theory.

Ode to a Rose Bush

Buddings spring from leafy branches
Petals explode into clouds of maroon
Due drops cling to your stem of thorns
Eager for the taste of my blood 

Winds howl and torrential rain
Rake and claw your petals
Tearing and dashing them into the air
Jealous thieves of your secular beauty 

Freezing snows and blazing skies
Harass you all the year long
Despite your mounting strife
You grow tall and do not whither before the storm 

Your relief comes accompanied by spring
Flourishing and flowering you sing me your song
Petals to offend the soft rolling skies
Thorns that thirst for the taste of my blood

Rangers Lead the Way-President Regan

This speech was given by President Regan on the 40th anniversary of D-Day on the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc.

“We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these shear and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers — the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machineguns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.”

A Trifle of a Speck

A quote by Carl Sagan, one of the most poetic astronomers of our time.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”