<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;" class="">What If We Were Alone?</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">What if there weren't any stars?</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">What if only the sun and the earth</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">circled alone in the sky? What if</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">no one ever found anything outside</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">this world right here? -- no Galileo</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">could say, "Look -- it is out there,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">a hint of whether we are everything."</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Look out at the stars. Yes -- cold</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">space. Yes, we are so distant that</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">the mind goes hollow to think it.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">But something is out there. Whatever</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">our limits, we are led outward. We glimpse</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">company. Each glittering point of light</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">beckons: "There is something beyond."</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">The moon rolls through the trees, rises</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">from them, and waits. In the river all</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">night a voice floats from rock</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">to sandbar, to log. What kind of listening</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">can follow quietly enough? We bow, and </div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">the voice that falls through the rapids</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">calls all the rocks by their secret names.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class=""> - William Stafford</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>