Sizing Up

by Paul A. Freeman
The Write Idea
Honorable Mention, November 2021
Judged by Terence Culleton


A house that’s been constructed on a plot;
a city nestling in a sovereign state.
A continent-encircled, blue-white dot
inclined upon its axis, and oblate.
Our planet, one of eight, goes round a star,
a G class sun, a master puppeteer
conducting rocky asteroids from afar
and thawing frozen comets as they near.
Outside the solar system, if you stray,
like Voyager, you’ll traverse a cold, black pond
that’s speckled with the dusty Milky Way
and billions of galaxies beyond.
Our universe! Did chance or God create
this space-and-time constricted figure eight?