the effects
from The Catalogue of the Universe
To see the gods withdraw, dethroned, exposed to ridicule, was our allotted truth – and not without its suffering.
They weren’t dislodged by other, stronger gods: they simply came to nothing. That line of enquiry closed.
With space-time there are rules on how to leave completely: accrete, accrete, be massive, wait, grow obsolete, begin
to shrink, speed up, cave in, collapse and vanish – and amid the photographs of supergiants, red dwarfs,
the neon spiral nebulae, is this rudimentary study done with a compass and a pencil: Black Hole (Artist’s impression).
In modern death no light escapes. You cannot see it only note the wobble of the bodies on their axes, in their orbits.
In Cookstown District Cemetery hundreds pack the graveside till mid-hymn, a dog gets free: the animal I cannot see
only how the faces turn, one-by-one and radiant, to watch the mongrel running masterless among them.
Nick Laird
