Christopher Vera’s Mystic Nebula

The fundamental units of the Universe are its suns; its basic building blocks. Its galaxies are likened to cells in our bodies. Thus, its dark matter becomes flesh, unseen from inside. Its black holes are like cancer that feed oh, so slowly. Over billions and billions of billions of years. Yet its soul–yes its soul–is so human: Tragic, complex and unknowable.

It occurred to me in Italy as I stood before Michealangelo’s David, that we don’t go to see great works of art. We can find pictures of masterpieces in books and on postcards that are better lit, show more detail. Most of us have “seen” great works of art before.

Then why do we go to see them in real life?

I believe we go to stand great works of art not to merely make them a part of our brief lives, or to say that we saw them to our friends, but to make ourselves part of their history. So millenia from now, long after we are gone, in the ongoing life of the masterpiece, somehow we become part of its history. That like the great leaders and the untold millions before us, we too stood before the masterpiece and gazed upon it.

That we too became, in our own way, a part of history that although may never be recorded, can never be denied. Like Michaelangelo, I stood before David. I was there.

The masterpiece becomes our witness to these micro-histories in the making, repeating over and over for every person. May they have long memories.