Learning from Copernicus

     These days are challenging ones -- HOW can we live safely?  How can we live morally? How can we learn that none of us is the center of the universe?
     Today, read the poetic words of Paul Tran and consider these questions.

     Copernicus   by Paul Tran (from The New Yorker, link below)

     Who doesn’t know how
     doubt lifts the hem of its nightgown

     to reveal another inch of thigh
     before the face of faith?

     I once didn’t. I once thought I was
     my own geometry,
     my own geocentric planet

     spinning like a ballerina, alone
     at the center of the universe, at the command of a god
     opening my music box
     with his dirty mouth. He said

     Let there be light—
     And I thought I was the light.

     I was a man’s failed imagination.

     Now I know what appears
     as the motion of Heaven
     is just the motion of Earth.

     Not stars.
     Not whatever I want.

Tran's poem is available here in January 20, 2020 issue of The New Yorker.