Gravity (1998)

At the center, the powerful brilliance of the sun.
Racing outwards, just minutes at light speed are the inner planets,
Mercury but a dried up rock, Venus sizzling with anxiety.
Green Earth, teaming with life,  a cauldron of confusion and chaos.
Past the warring planet of Mars—named by humans who find no peace.
Asteroids, thousands of them, a planet that once was, pulled apart by invisible forces.
 
After a minute the large planets pass by, Jupiter, the Greek’s God supreme.  Saturn,
Neptune, Uranus and the far distance icy Pluto.
More time passes and than again time. 
Distance is the physical law observed here and gravity is half by its square. 
Further out still, at the edge of the chaotic solar system.  Connected to it by the invisible threads of physical attraction, the Ort Cloud. 
 
Like millions of marionettes they circle the chaotic center played upon by one simple rule, 
The rule of the gravity, the rule of attraction, the rule of the Sun.
From time to time, in a cosmic perspective, the strings playing upon an icy rock are tugged free from the elemental bounds that hold it to its brother.
 
It stirs and free falls for millennium towards its beckoning mistress. 
It falls at dizzying speeds, hurtling towards the center of existence. 
Spewing forth particles of water and the gases freed by the breath of its solar goddess.
Each time it falls it changes, loses parts of itself and becomes a different shape.
An innate object given movement and a semblance of life—thankful to the sun.
 
Its tail grows longer and humans take note. 
For a moment they ponder the infinite, and reflect at the mysteries of the Universe.
And they give this snowball a name, Hale-Bopp. 
Scientists study it and lovers embrace it, if but for a moment.
If the sun doesn’t consume it.  Hale-Bopp will speed on its way.
It tail always pointing, home, towards the darkness of the ort cloud.