‘The Earth from Mars’ by Devin Kelly

Distance is a wild
                            engineer.
You can run
                for so long & never escape
                                                      light, time,
                                                      or what both will do
                                                                     to you
                                                      without your consent.

Sometimes distance can be grounding, the memory of a larger picture that exists outside of the frames of what we see day to day. ‘The Earth from Mars’ by Devin Kelly, published in Graviton’s inaugural issue, is a look through the telescope back down onto ourselves. Kelly’s poem is unconcerned with empty clichés or the pursuit of creating easy meaning from its title image, but rather seeks to understand the nature of distance, in all its many forms.

There’s so much I’m still
             trying to grasp.
                                    The interminable closeness
                                    I feel with everything
                                                  & the way, some days,
                                    I know no one but myself.

Sometimes taking inventory, or deviating our perspectives, serves a purpose beyond simply knowing more, but feeling more, feeling for more. The smaller we become in context, the more space every little moment takes in our own existences. Every loss, every thought, every oft-held memory a heftier thing, a brighter spot flickering at us in the distance. Here, so many miles away from everything, or anything, we remember how large the world is, and then, how bigger still the rest of it is.

Think of how we each
           live on it
           & how no one
                                    but a cold robot
                                                is watching us twirl
                                                               through the light

Graviton