Ignoble Retreat at the Edge where Earth and Firmament meet . . .

Ubi cœlum terræ se conjungit.

                           A host of angels
                                       vent their dirge obscure
           as of a vanquished 
                                       army of cicadas
           to signify alarm or
                                       their displeasure
           called to retreat, scorned
                                       unavailing stardust.

‘. . . and now in little space the confines met
of Empyrean Heav’n and of this World . . .’
                                                                                     Paradise Lost Book 10
                                                                                              1667 John Milton

A Miotic and Dilative Cosmic Eye

In his paper published in April 1930, Zum kosmologischen Problem der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie, Albert Einstein  speculates briefly on a universe in a process of Expansion (Dilatationsbewegung) and Collapse in an eternal cycle of extinctions and rebirths. His flirtation with Oscillating Universe theory develops from a presumption of ‘spherical  space [spharischen Raum], whose radius is variable over time [and, in consequence, a progressive decrease in expansion follows, which] sets an upper boundary for the radius of the cosmos that cannot be exceeded with the passage of time . . . whereupon the whole process is gone through in the opposite sense (umgekehrtem Sinne) . . .’

Quod dei deo, quod Caesaris Caesari.

                  Since Death these days is on everyone’s lips,

                  we pledge ourselves to His buyers’ market;

                  a mortal spark will trade a loss, perhaps,

                  for the spoils of everlasting darkness.