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Galileo Worries About His Weight


by XXXX


I, Seer of the Stars, Cartographer of the Cosmos,
measure my mass, and to whom do I owe this woe
of being a sack of stones, a tank of lard, a barrel of berries
and wine, more Hog than Man, devoted as I am

to the Circumference of the Orbits, than of my Belly,
to the Expansion of the Universe, than of my Waist!

Who shall remember me now? If I squeal, shall it
echo throughout the halls of History, or shall I but be 
served another batch of Figs and Wine, and Beef?
O can a man fit in textbooks, if a man is as Fat as me?

I shall attend hence merely to the planets' rise and fall—
through a Telescope even the corpulent are small:
What is a petty scientist who merely weighs a ton
compared to the burning majesty of this ancient Sun?
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