On Seeing the First Image from the James Webb Space Telescope

Abstract

On Seeing the First Image from the James Webb Space Telescope Elizabeth Carls (bio) Over cocktails you show me a photo of deep space on the too small screen of your phone. The image, a sea of dark bedazzled with the nebulous shapes of what look like stars but are, in fact, entire galaxies. Edgeless astral bodies splashed like a blizzard across a screen that cannot manage the magnitude of the image or the achievement. You say something about 13 billion years and light and death and birth, but the gentle buzz of good gin has softened my edges, and I am lost in this moment. My gaze drifting over your shoulder, through the wavey plate glass window, to a distorted view of fading daylight and the sparse traffic of a formerly industrial neighborhood. My attention floating on the vibrations of hushed conversations being had by strangers who also have screens, conversations restrained in pitch and volume, hovering just below the soundtrack. After a span of time that feels inappropriately longer than a polite conversational pause, I respond, Did you say 13 billion? As if by repetition I will, in a flash, comprehend the size of that number. As if by repeating yourself, this bar full of strangers will at once look up from their phones and embrace the enormity of a universe expanding. You say, Yes, and I still don’t get it. Instead, in this moment, what I understand with an unquestionable thoroughness of my whole stardust body is how small by way of comparison this moment is, how short even a lifetime is, how vastly expansive the view outside that window. [End Page 1] In this moment, I am certain that when all the pyrrhic achievements are done, when the screens have gone dim, when these strangers and myself are void, and the Doomsday is past, even then, in the ever-expanding space of 13 billion years, the light from the birth and death of countless stars will continue to shine and shine and shine. [End Page 2] Elizabeth Carls Elizabeth is a poet and essayist living and working in St. Paul, MN. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Split Rock Review, River Teeth, and Texas Gardener Magazine. She is currently working on an MFA in The Creative Writing Program at Hamline University. Copyright © 2023 River Teeth