Out of this World

When I was younger, I used to look at the stars and wonder where the great bear was. I wanted to find the giraffe, the archer, the winged horse. I spent many hours with my eyes fixed on the dark sky, tracing imaginary lines between the bright dots. I never saw the bear, but I knew it was there. Then I grew up some, the stars were more than dots on a blackboard, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos opened my eyes to other possibilities: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." I never saw the bear, but I knew it was there. I grew up some more, and my questions grew with me. The universe a molecule, my world in a grain of sand.


Then what was foreign was no more. I found other worlds without looking at the stars. I am here, now, I know this much. I was there, then, I know this much. I might never see the bear, but I know it is there.