Hello

This poem appears in the Summer 2019 issue of Modern Age. To subscribe now, go here.

This night sky’s full of galaxies, each one
One hundred billion stars. Numbers insist
That on a trillion planets life’s begun—
I know this evening out there you exist.
I wave, and you can’t say I haven’t tried
To say hello, to find you in this brawl
Of light and darkness where you choose to hide.
Why is it that you don’t return my call?

Perhaps our timelines never were in sync.
You’re always way ahead, or far behind—
Too smart, or waiting for that missing link.
It’s not your fault our stars are not aligned;
Our eon, epoch, age so out of whack
That when I wave no one is waving back.

Founded in 1957 by the great Russell Kirk, Modern Age is the forum for stimulating debate and discussion of the most important ideas of concern to conservatives of all stripes. It plays a vital role in these contentious, confusing times by applying timeless principles to the specific conditions and crises of our age—to what Kirk, in the inaugural issue, called “the great moral and social and political and economic and literary questions of the hour.”