Eternal Light (relatively speaking)

Our big bright sun is located eight light-minutes away,

It hides from us at the end of each day.

Each morning returning,

Orange and burning.

That faithful fiery ball of lava,

Risin’ from the horizon like a fresh cup of java.

The sun’s light hitting your face,

Just spent eight minutes racing through space.

Like the crack of the bat at the ballpark that you see, but don’t hear till one second later,

Although the sunlight’s time-delay is eight minutes greater.

If the sun turned off like a light switch this very second,

It would be eight minutes before you and I reckoned.

For these eight minutes we’d be seeing the past,

Still bathing in the orange glow of a dead star whose time has passed.

If we could travel faster enough than the speed of light to just the right distance,

We'd be able to catch today's very last sunrise for just one more instance.

If the sun went dark all of a sudden, I'd need a rocket with twice the speed of light powers,

To land five light-hours away on Pluto, in time to see the sun for 2¹/₂ more final hours.

Basking for eight minutes in the sunlight of a now-dead star,

To those no longer with us -

From somewhere light-years away out there, your light can still be seen from afar.