CONTACT
by Carl Sagan
For Alexandra,
who comes of age
with the Millennium.
May we leave your generation a world
better than the one we were given.
PART I
THE
MESSAGE
My heart trembles like a poor leaf.
The planets whirl in my dreams.
The stars press...
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CONTACT
by Carl Sagan
For Alexandra,
who comes of age
with the Millennium.
May we leave your generation a world
better than the one we were given.
PART I
THE
MESSAGE
My heart trembles like a poor leaf.
The planets whirl in my dreams.
The stars press against my window.
I rotate in my sleep.
My bed is a warm planet.
-MARVIN MERCER P.
S.
153, Fifth Grade, Harlem New York City, N.
Y.
(1981)
CHAPTER 1
Transcendental
Numbers
Little fly,
Thy summer s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
-WILLIAM BLAKE Songs of Experience "The Fly," Stanzas 1-3 (1795)
By human standards it could not possibly have been artificial: It was the size
of a world.
But it was so oddly and intricately shaped, so clearly intended for
some complex purpose that it could only have been the expression of an idea.
Gliding in polar orbit about the great blue-white star, it resem
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