Starlight

For the past few nights, I've been sitting on my front patio under the Big Dipper, Ursa Major, and noticing vaguely that something seemed wrong. Something was missing. I realized last night that it is a star that is missing. There is said to be seven bright stars in Ursa Major, but I cannot help but notice that one has fallen away. It seems like so many of the lights are going out these days, in the world, in the heavens. Of course, the light that I am not now seeing is light that was travelling to the earth many years ago, and if the star is gone, it has been gone for many more years than that. It would have been gone before I was born. I am seeing now, or was seeing, light from a time before I existed. I am witness therefore to the existence of the universe with or without me. But where does light go after one sees it? Surely, it continues on across the universe, with likely no one to see it, barring the existence of aliens (but let them see it too, then; it doesn't matter). Does the light end because I have seen it? No, because I know that it was there even before I saw it because I am seeing the light that was there before I was born. Where does it go? Does starlight not exist unless the individual sees it? And then where does it stop? Does it stop? Does it reach the edge of the universe and enter some kind of realm of nonexistence? But how could there be a realm outside of the universe? That would merely make the realm part of the universe and thus no longer a realm of nonexistence. Does the universe wrap around and begin all over again. As it turns out, the starlight did not need the star, did it, except for in that instance wherein it began. Thereafter, the life of the star became its light. And the light is not really gone. It is merely traveling and will surely be back again, just where it was to begin with.