Death of Galileo

Since 1642 a Ponderosa Pine stood
on a ridge halfway up the Pino trail
in the Sandia Mountains
looking over the majestic westward expanse,
leading to the Great Divide.

Dead now, it has joined a hillside 
of blackened  brethren succumbed
to bark beetle blight
accelerated by drought and rising temperature
apparent to all who walk these woods.

Too much carbon in the atmosphere
our industrial disease.
Read about it in some newspaper,
or look out the window,
or notice the silence of vanishing birds.

The powerful never want us to believe our eyes.
Galileo. who urged the Bishops to look into his telescope,
and see the moons circling Jupiter,
just like the planets orbiting the sun.
Forced to recant by the Roman inquisition.

The heliocentric idea, already one hundred years old,
What scared the powers that be?
Copernicus’s compendium written in Latin.
Galileo’s dialogue printed in Italian
and available at the corner book store.