Amazing space, where without bound
the stellar systems whirl,
and ever onward all around,
both time and space unfurl.
In awe we see this beauty still,
though spacemen old we be.
Whose trace and praise the heavens fill,
the same, he thought of me!
A galaxy is like a reef
where stars are born and die.
Though long-lived, yet their end is brief:
a mighty, final cry.
There near the core, without a sound
we slid through starry void,
where novae blast, black holes abound,
we've almost been destroyed.
The star was old, a giant red,
his lifeblood nearly spent,
We flew too close; we should have fled,
but nearer still we went.
The blastwave took our engines out
and carried us away.
We drifted there in fearful doubt
we'd live another day.
For caught we were, without control,
in an accretion disk,
and in its center some black hole
was churning like a whisk.
What happen'd then, another song
I've written and I've sung.
Lest this song be a bit too long,
Just to the cause I've clung.
What mighty grace, I often think,
that saved a wreck like ours!
And from this grace I've come to drink,
e'er since those fateful hours.
So now you know to stay away
from stars that might explode.
That thou mayst learn, I deeply pray,
lest levity thee goad.
