by Katherine Ruhl
Sometimes, I think about the sun, eons upon epochs of years older than we ever have been or ever will be.
How much does she remember from her 4.5 billion years of life?
Does she miss the dinosaurs?
Will she miss us when we’re gone?
What does she remember?
The children that played outside and grinned in her face?
The late risers that scowled and closed the blinds?
The millions that awed over an eclipse?
What does she remember?
The beachgoers with blistering sunburns in awkward places?
The telescope that captured the golden, glistening beauty of her surface for the first time?
The countless stories told of Apollo and Ra and blackbody radiation?
What does she remember?
Is she simply a mass of nuclear fusion reactions, burning with a surface temperature of 5800ºK, 150 million kilometers away?
Indifferent to the tiny mortals on the chunk of rock that her light takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach?
I can’t say. I’m just a scientist, not a star.
What I do know is that sometimes, I think about the sun.
And I love her.