The Day the Universe Died

Dagne Forrest

After Frank O'Hara

If the Universe died at 12:20
in New York on a Friday
it would expire at 3:20
in Tasmania on a Saturday
(give or take). Media outlets 
with their canned obits,
always at the ready for a dead
celebrity, would be scooped
by something they'll never
see coming, never mind going.

Headline writers would,
if only they could,
be frustrated to miss
the headline of a lifetime:
"Universe Ends Abruptly".
Of the five ways it all might end, most –
the Big Rip, the Big Crunch or Heat Death 
(why don't we call it the Big Chill)
– will be so far in the future...so what, right?

But Vacuum Decay, well that
would be a whole other story.
An arbitrary quantum shift
could mean everything
would just suddenly stop.

The Universe and everything
in it would simply cease to be
as a high energy tsunami
rushed out to claim galaxies
upon galaxies in an instant, 
the fine nuance of human
existence and thought gone.
Forget about the clever reference
or witty repartee as the Universe
snatches the last syllable
and rolls it up, well out of reach.

If we could choose, 
the Bouncing Cosmos
at least holds the promise
of ending and beginning, ending
and beginning, just like the jazz
beats so loved by Frank.
An endless cycling between
birth and death, from the Big Bang
to a singularity and back again.
The beating heart of possible existence 
keeping a rhythm we'd warm to,
if only we could hear it.

The Science

The science focused on uncovering the most essential laws around the universe's existence has largely been focused on its beginnings. More recently, theories of how it might end (or regenerate, depending on the theory) have come to the fore, and I find this idea of an ending so much larger than ourselves fascinating. It led me to consider the ending of time by entering into a dialogue of sorts with both the current scientific theory and Frank O'Hara's poem about the day jazz singer and legend Billie Holiday died.

Katie Mack's superb book The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) is a wonderful primer for anyone interested in understanding the ways in which our universe might end. It manages to be both informative and entertaining on a subject that is incomprehensibly large in many respects.

The Poet

Dagne Forrest (she/her) is a Canadian author whose poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in journals in Canada, the US, and the UK. In 2021 she was one of 15 poets featured in Canada’s ‘Poem in Your Pocket’ campaign, and was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and Mslexia Single Poem Contest. In 2023 she won first prize in the Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest run by The New Quarterly. Her work has appeared in december magazine, Rust + Moth, Lake Effect, SWWIM Every Day, Prism International, Whale Road Review, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. She is a member of Painted Bride Quarterly’s editorial and podcast teams. dagneforrest.com.

Next poem: Ticking Like a Mountain by Laura op de Beke