Somewhere in space, impossibly it seems,
the stars always sing. They bring to rings of light,
celestial rhythm, a chance to dance, a sort of space romance,
a stellar pas de deux.
In whirling-waltz, they swirl possibly unaware,
of sparks flame-shot in incandescent flares.
A quadrille for dVerse, where De has asked us to use some form of the word possible.
“For myself, I declare I don’t know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream.”
Vincent van Gogh, letter to his brother Theo, July 1888
“I think about our ancestors. Thousands of years, wondering if they were alone in the universe. Finally discovering they weren’t. You can’t blame them for wanting to reach out, see how many other species were out there, asking the same questions.”
–Captain Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek Voyager, Episode, “Friendship One”
At night
ghosts sail to stars
dazzling the universe
with wild poetry,
that thing there—
see it?
the liquid blush of desire
Earth spins and orbits our Sun
but all is not right
(in day or night)
the heavens rage
the surface heaves
the forests burn
the oceans churn
(do you hear them sigh)
and creatures die
on the stars I make a wish
for planet, us, for birds and fish
and then under the glowing stream
I close my eyes and then I dream
I wake to see bright Venus,
high above
she sings of love
there in the eastern sky
she dances and she wonders why
(as do I, oh, as do I)
we are not swayed from the hate
and do not counter or negate
the dotard’s words of folly
but instead sink into a melancholy—
(as do I, oh, as do I)
under starlight’s beam
once again
I close my eyes and then I dream
We watch Star Trek Voyager
Earth’s greeting of friendship gone wrong
a civilization pushed headlong
into nuclear winter,
the next day—synchronicity
a radio story of the real Voyager
the golden record as it would sound to aliens
Simplicity? Specificity?
We want to reach out,
to know we’re not alone
the moon smiles and gleams
I close my eyes and then I dream
We have a holiday dinner
missing daughters, sister, and niece
still I present the soup and loaf
(a masterpiece!)
with apples, honey, and some wine
we drink and eat and we are fine
(we pour more wine)
talk of movies and van Gogh
(there’s a new movie out, you know)
wonder about Ben Franklin’s diet and life
then matter-of-factly my mother’s zinger
that he did not sleep alone
at ninety-five, she was so in the zone!
and with that, the laughter lingers
sweet
like the honeyed fingers
from the baklava and apple cake
she mangles the middle
and picks at the pieces
but sister laughter
follows after
and after
We drink more wine, again we’re fine
under moonlight sky and starry stream
I close my eyes and then I dream. . .
of the universe’s wild poetry
of singing stars and humming moons
of spirits soaring and swaying to the tunes
before dawn’s blush of desire
turns the sky to fire
I wake and look up to the sky
to see Venus shining bright
I gaze and wish
for us, for cats, and fish
for dogs, and horses, and for birds
(and yes, even for the dotard)
for the planet, earth, and trees
and for the seas
under Venus’s beaming gleam
I close my eyes and wish and dream
So, we watched Star Trek Voyager and saw an episode about the result of a probe that was sent out from Earth that was very similar to the real Voyager and its golden record. Then the next day, I heard this story on NPR’s Weekend Morning Edition and the Oracle gave me that poem. Synchronicity?
Some of you may know because I’ve ranted about it that I’ve been working on two reference books about rape. I am happy to report that both manuscripts have now been sent in. I also finished another project over the weekend, so I should now have time to answer e-mails and respond to comments and prompts. At least until, I receive copyedited manuscript (first one is coming next month).
Time wasn’t, then was,
once, the universe banged,
whirred, whispered
echoing across space
melody carried by stars
(adding harmony)
and cosmic dust
(rhythm)
sound dancing through Saturn’s rings
echoes reverberating through oceans
sensed in two heartbeats joined
echoing
somewhere, someplace
time was and is
A quadrille for dVerse. Host De Jackson, aka WhimsyGizmo, asks us to use the word “echo.”
I was thinking about space and then listened to this, Audra McDonald singing “Somewhere” from West Side Story. 🙂
Explorer,
what wonders will you see?
As you strike out boldly through the clouds,
spectrometers reading the signs
checking for radio and plasma waves
no dragons in your starry ocean, wine dark,
unmanned, but still the sirens call
(listen)
you sail,
not searching for gold,
not racing for the Northwest Passage,
but pursuing knowledge
taking science, applying it
sharing what you’ve learned—
visions—
(we see them, too)
mileposts and revelations
like life,
weathered,
changed,
scored by the elements,
(floating)
yet I wonder if you’ve heard the music,
of the stars and rings?
Do they chime, do they sing
in contrapuntal melodies,
weaving time and space?
Ancient wisdom there, eternal tides and waves,
(listen)
before you vanish
out of range
(the siren calls)
out of contact
alone,
the explorer
“This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 7 degrees below the ring plane. The image was taken in green light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 18, 2017.” Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Today is Day 26 of NaPoWriMo. I misread the prompt, which was to write a poem about some sort of explorer from the future looking at something here on Earth. I guess mine is the opposite–inspired by today’s Google Doodle. I’ve also used Secret Keeper’s Weekly Writing Prompt words: Strike/Score/Race/Take/ Read
Delaware River, National Park, NJ
I stand at the river and watch the small waves break against the rocks, feel the ancient tidal rhythm. Hear its’ call. You dwelled here once, it says. I pick up a stone from the beach, rolling it about in my hand. Its’ hard surface is worn smooth by the water that has kissed it softly, repeatedly over time. Created thousands of years ago by heat, water, and air, this stone has journeyed along the river, till I, born of heat, too, and composed of water and minerals, worn by time, softened by kisses, pick it up.
World born in fire,
stellar dust swirls, drifts, and falls,
carried in our genes
speckles of cosmic magic
in my eyes gazing at you
This is Day 14 of NaPoWriMo. I’m off prompt today. I’ve written a haibun for Colleen Chesebro’s Weekly Poetry Challenge instead. The prompt words were hard and soft.
“And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together,
You stopped and pointed and you said, ‘That’s a crocus,’
And I said, “What’s a crocus?” and you said, “It’s a flower,”
I tried to remember, but I said, “What’s a flower?”
You said, “I still love you.”
–Dar Williams, “February”
“This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?”
–Henry David Thoreau, Walden
February grayness brightens with a flower
teasing us before the snow.
The snow moon haunts and taunts
the wind blows,
wild wolves howling in the night,
winter darkness,
and yet dawn comes,
and so will spring.
First Crocus, National Park, NJ
Watching the February snow. National Park, NJ
My daughters and I,
in separate locations,
celebrate our snow day
(though the inch or two in New Jersey
does not compare to Boston’s blizzard)
we share our thoughts,
in text messages
(technology that did not exist when I young)
throughout the day,
as if we were wondering in and out of rooms—
separated by space,
but instantly connected in time,
what we are cooking and baking–
meatballs, lentil soup, artisan bread, sweet potato nachos–
deciding banana bread with added chocolate chips
makes it both bread and cake,
suitable for breakfast or dessert,
one daughter says she just watched, Finding Dory,
and cried,
but then we cry over everything,
TV shows, books, commercials,
other daughter says, “I cried when I burnt toast the other day,
but the point is that you should watch the movie.”
My husband chimes in with a message that he is saving this conversation,
“It is SO my family.”
A few days later my husband and I see the movie, Lion,
and my tears flow,
I think it is good I’m not watching it with my daughters,
all three of us sobbing in the theater,
though I notice my husband discreetly wiping his eyes.
I think again about technology,
the nineteenth-century invention, the train,
that separates the five-year-old boy from his family,
that little boy with the heart and spirit of a lion,
a twentieth-century plane separates them ever father
across bodies of water to Tasmania
how a twenty-first-century invention, Google Earth,
brings them back together
It turns out that we see the movie in February,
and it was in February that Saroo Briefley reunited with his family.
On a February night I gave birth to one daughter,
and on a February night three years later, I gave birth to her sister,
and so, we celebrate birthdays
with wine and chocolate
around the holiday of love
hearts and love
chocolate and wine
I think of the brilliant February moon,
its light shining through the kitchen window
making me stop and stare,
and gaze at the sky–
technology leads us out to the stars,
to our moon’s craters
and to Saturn’s rings,
Valentine’s love from Cassini
“Splendid Saturn,”NASA Image, PIA06594/ NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
I wake during the night to hear
February’s winds,
wild horse gods,
stallions that gallop in
and seed the ground,
for spring
will come again–
until then, there is chocolate, wine,
and memories.
A number of New Jersey wineries have special wine and chocolate events close the weekend before Valentine’s Day. This year we went to one at Heritage Winery in Mullica Hill, NJ.
Trailer for Lion.
By Phil Sangwell from United Kingdom (Harvest moon.) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
I gaze at the Harvest Moon
from my kitchen door.
Glorious, golden, and full,
she hums a message of hope,
and winks at me from the star-lit sea.
She appears, full moon
just before the autumnal equinox
gleaming and glowing for farmers’ gleaning,
giving them light in the darkness.
She’s a moon for lovers,
and for lunatics and werewolves, too.
Do you see them walking through the streets of Soho?
Lon Chaney and the queen? Aaooooooo!
Was it the call of the moon that brought to Whitechapel
a demon, a golem, a monster, a man
who ripped and mutilated bodies
and then vanished in the dark? Vanished in time?
We think monsters walk only in the night,
hiding in the shadows,
hiding under beds,
but some appear in daylight, too,
disguised as men.
They were there when the ovens glowed red hot,
the ovens that worked full-time, day and night
and yet people still deny they existed,
these extermination factories
though the stench of death rose in the air
and ashes drifted like snow.
And monsters are here now still, spreading hatred
spreading lies, burying truth like old bones,
denial, the métier of despotic regimes
We see the movie, Demon,
my husband and I
a Polish wedding goes horribly wrong,
the groom possessed by a dybbuk,
a Jewish woman who lived in the town
(I did say horribly wrong.)
A nightmare of a wedding,
but it goes on,
the guests getting drunker and wilder,
the bride’s parents denying anything is wrong,
until her father says,
“We must forget what we didn’t see here.”
Ghosts of the past haunt people and nations.
And so it goes,
bury the bones, bury the truth
but the truth is out there,
so I’ve heard,
and history is bound to be repeated.
But bones can be dug up,
And truth can be recovered.
After the movie, we see a wedding party
they are smiling and taking photos,
to remember the moment, the joy,
a record of a golden day.
At Independence Mall,
love glowing, love growing
in the cradle of liberty.
And so, we strive, we try.
Men have reached the moon
and ships have sailed past it.
We seek to tell other beings we are here
here on this pale blue dot,
the third planet from our sun.
Our golden record,
gold like our sun,
gold like the Harvest Moon,
is journeying, telling our story.
It carries the music of Berry and Bach,
bagpipes and flutes, a mother’s kiss, a baby’s cry,
the sounds of love, the sounds of creativity.
So shine on Harvest Moon,
way up in the sky,
Hum your song, do your magic.
Down here, we love and we kill,
We’re angels and demons,
We’re romantics and scientists
We’re human, fallible and strong.
We live in hope.
By NASA/JPL (The Sounds of Earth Record Cover) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
This week my husband and I watched the season finale of Season 4 of Ripper Street, a British show about police detectives in 19th century London in the area of Whitechapel where Jack the Ripper once lurked. This season, the show focused on Jewish characters who had fled Russian pogroms. Some in the neighborhood believed there was a golem attacking people there.
Yesterday we saw the movie, Demon (d. Marcin Wrona, 2015), released in U.S. September 2016. You can see a trailer and reviews here.
On the radio show, Science Friday this past week, there was a segment on the Golden Record. They are also asking for suggestions from listeners of what they would include in a new golden record.
According to legend, werewolves turn from their human form to wolves at the full moon. “Werewolves of London” is a song by Warren Zevon.
Should you ever decide to visit a black hole,
fall perhaps, on your way in space
brace yourself, there could be sound
found there,
beware, oh!
No, not that you’d hear the song,
long as you might want to, but in space
bass notes aren’t heard at will
still, the black holes sing.
Those who study such things
(strings and theories and time)
minds more clever than my own,
tone academic, say space-time curves,
swerves, in a gravitational singularity.
But–
but should you survive,
alive, say after your starship takes a wrong turn,
learn this now,
somehow, look for the back door
for at its center
enter, and this leads to a wormhole.
There you’ll get “spaghettified”
Up-and-downsified, stretched, enlarged,
charged, or changed
rearranged, like Alice after she ate the cake,
mistake, or like the largest piece of pasta ever,
never say never, (I won’t judge) and then pushed whoop-de-doo
through the wormhole, You,
to another part of the universe.
I’d say, the sharpest trick ever,
whenever, yet not for me.
See, I prefer spaghetti to eat,
feet on ground, plate on table
stable, and able from there I
sigh, and gaze up high.
This is in response to Secret Keeper’s Writing Prompt
Using these words: Sound/Sharp/Clever/Judge/Still
I wrote an echo poem.
Here’s some information on “spaghettification”
And on the songs of black holes
“This is a composite photo, assembled from separate images of Jupiter and comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, as imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in 1994.Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was discovered by astronomers Carolyn and Eugene M. Shoemaker and David Levy on March 24, 1993. It was the first comet observed to be orbiting a planet — in this case, Jupiter — rather than the sun. The effect of Jupiter’s tidal forces had already torn the celestial body apart and, eventually, the fragments collided with Jupiter between July 16 and 22, 1994.” Credit: NASA, ESA, H. Weaver and E. Smith (STScI) and J. Trauger and R. Evans (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
They met and married, made a life
raised a family, not much strife.
She stayed home, he studied the stars,
shine of planets, Jupiter, Mars
At fifty it’s her turn to gaze,
to view the comets and the blaze
of their tails burning brightly
own the sky, see new things nightly
When death came and took him too soon,
she sent his ashes to the moon.
Over the tree, it rises now
he smiles from there above the bough
This poem is in response to Secret Keeper’s Weekly Writing Prompt. The words were: Own/turn/shine/tree/star.
The poem is about Carolyn and Eugene (Gene) Shoemaker. Carolyn was featured on this StoryCorps episode, where she talks about their life together. Gene is the only person whose ashes have been left on the moon.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dancing among the stars,
boldly going where none have gone before,
she orbits the gas giant. No small feat.
A world of wonder lies ahead.
a long-standing project, a long awaited voyage
standing on the shoulders of giants,
Juno, consort of Jupiter,
but powerful in her own right,
daughter of Saturn, mother of Mars,
Queen of the Universe,
she moves, traveling millions of kilometers,
a five-year journey to unknown parts.
But still she sings,
she sings a song of perfection,
chasing the truth,
seeking knowledge,
inspiration and inspirational
exploring the unknown,
she soars, flying high, flying effortlessly,
spinning a brief tale of glory
that will end with a crash,
but she will live on in science, immortal.
This is response to Secret Keeper’s Weekly Writing Prompt. This week’s words: move/small/wonder/dance/part. The line about Juno singing comes from this:
“Through tones Juno sang to us and it was a song of perfection,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno Project Manager, referring to the audio signal the probe sent to indicate it was in orbit. It’s from this article.
Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings 