Onward, “to infinity and beyond!”

(railing and the Los Angeles skyline)

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“The sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons of Los :

 And every space that a man views around his dwelling-place

 Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount

 Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his universe:

 And on its verge the sun rises and sets, the clouds bow

 To meet the flat earth and the sea in such an order’d space:

 The starry heavens reach no further, but here bend and set

 On all sides, and the two Poles turn on their valves of gold:

 And if he moves his dwelling-place, his heavens also move

 Where’er he goes, and all his neighbourhood bewail his loss.

 Such are the spaces called Earth and such its dimension.

 As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner

 As of a globe rolling through voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro.

 The microscope knows not of this nor the telescope: they alter

 The ratio of the spectator’s organs, but leave objects untouch’d.

 For every space larger than a red globule of Man’s blood

 Is visionary, and is created by the Hammer of Los;

 And every space smaller than a globule of Man’s blood opens

 

   

 Into Eternity of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow.

 The red globule is the unwearied sun by Los created

 To measure time and space to mortal men every morning.”

                                                 William Blake

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Photo by Myra Lambino, Griffith Park Observatory, Los Angeles, California