Florilegium: 2001: A Space Odyssey

I had never seen the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, so my dad borrowed it from the library and we watched it together. What a trip that was! I immediately wanted to read the book and see how it compared—and I was fascinated by Clarke's imaginings. This poem is the florilegium I put together after reading it.

He was prepared, he thought, for any wonder

but discontent had come into his soul.

Infinite range and all but infinite power:

the shining silence it could never reach.

We do not know if you will meet with good or evil—or only with ruins

across another half billion miles of comet-haunted emptiness.

He had taken one small step. It was unreasonable to expect more.

Though there was still plenty of talking,

you could be terrified, but you could not be worried.

I never imagined I'd be an amateur brain surgeon—

carrying out a lobotomy beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

Everyone who looked an inch beyond his nose

would find his life, his values, his philosophy, subtly changed

over the restless Jovian cloudscape.

Already he had seen wonders for which many men

would have sacrificed their lives. 

The only thing he had never expected was the utterly commonplace

flooding the land below with its radiance. 

 

Library book with lily of the valley