The Pillars of Creation.

What we see
is gone.

The pillars burn
in memory only.

Dust drifts
where light still claims form.

A breath once moved through them
the slow ruin of a star.

Light remained,
faithful to distance,
patient with illusion.

We look,
and mistake the echo
for the thing itself.

So it is with us.
The end precedes the knowing.

Our hearts collapse in secret,
their glow reaching us
years too late.

All touch
is ancient by the time we feel it.

We live
inside delay,
the long translation of what has been.

In that mercy of slowness
we are revealed
ghosts of our own making,
still shining.