3
Poetry
We killed the Universe
Anirudh Negi
The universe, too smug, prowled like the world's core,
Brandishing time as its cane, opening creation's door.
Sentience left haphazard in its eternal hold,
Afflicted by sense, a story untold.
Who dared move without his cosmic decree?
Who deemed themselves above all to be?
Each soul unique in the face of death's call,
Centering worlds around egos so small.
They cherished the random, killed for the vain,
Died for ideals, both profound and inane.
What spark of life did I carelessly blow,
Into these beings, both above and below?.
In absence's vacuum, we grasp and we reach,
Filling voids with meanings we desperately preach.
Towers of theory, castles in air,
Built on questions and doubts we barely dare.
Our hubris unbounded, curiosity unquenched,
We dissect the cosmos, its mysteries entrenched.
As if understanding could tame infinite space,
Or knowledge could mask our insignificant place.
In our relentless chase, irony blooms,
Killing one universe, countless others loom.
Each mind a multiverse, each thought a new world,
We've become the enigma we sought to unfurl.
Stars quiver before us, quasars grow dim,
Black holes now playgrounds for our every whim.
We've unraveled space-time with equations precise,
Becoming divinity’s weavers, but at what price?
This terrible awareness, a crushing weight,
Elevates and destroys, creates and negates.
Atop understanding's peak we now stand,
More lost than ever in this foreign land.
Orphans of our making, we stand all alone,
In a universe bare, its mysteries overthrown.
Are we creation's peak, the universe aware?
Or a star’s accident, sparks in midnight air?
The answer evades, as it always will,
Both question and questioner, a role we fulfill.
The cycle persists, unending, unbound,
We create and destroy, lost and found.
Gods' power in hand, mortals' doubt in heart,
Forever caught between whole and part.
The universe is dead, yet it lives anew,
In its end, our purpose comes into view.
Stardust children, infinity's orphaned heirs,
Forever seeking home in the pretty night we gaze.