We have a neighbor who keeps his eye on the International Space Station.
Whenever it’s going to be visable from our neck of the woods, he gathers us all in the street and we watch as it hurtles through space at 17,000 miles an hour.
I would’ve really loved to be an astronaut.
Y’know, if I wasn’t what I am.
I suspect I’d have needed to possess more scientific leanings rather than poetic, though, if I were to train without gravity and fly a space shuttle and do space walks to repair electronic heat shields, etc. etc.
But there is a beautiful intersection of science and poetry.
At every level — from the cellular to the celestial.
And I feel it when I stand in the middle of my street, head craned up in wonder.
In keeping with this thought, a gift poem from the very clever and incredibly prolific J. Patrick Lewis.
Thank you, Mr. Lewis, for sharing this with Poetry Friday fans!
The Aged Sun
Whether our star, the sun, grows old
By turning into liquid gold
To some celestial fireplace,
And turns its planets into dust,
Like some ascending-ending spheres,
Great things destroy, depart, lose touch
And so it will be with the sun,
And so it will be with the sun.
(This poem previously published in POEMS FOR TEACHING IN THE CONTENT AREAS, Scholastic Teaching Resources, 2007. All rights J. Patrick Lewis)
That’s beautiful. And sobering. And true. And lovely.
Jules
7-Imp
Oh, my, that’s lovely. You know my crazy-ambitious daughter wants to be an astronaut. I’m okay with that, except if she goes to Mars. Then I’m going to lie down in front of the spaceship.
You realize that lying down in front of a spaceship won’t really help anything, since it’s pointed UP, right?
Yeah, I know. But my MIL once lay down in front of my husband’s car when he was a teenager. Didn’t do any good then either. But it’s an old joke in our family.
OK, I’ll bite.
WHAT was she trying to prevent him from doing????
Driving in the snow, I think. In East Tennessee, that’s like driving to your death. Actually, I’m a bit hazy on the WHY. She kind of did crazy things like that often.
So lovely. I heart Pat, and his work. *sigh* Rhymed couplets, with that extra line at the end to add weight and finality (and to remind me of the end of “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”, although I’m not certain that was Pat’s intention).
I totally heard the same echo there, Kelly. Absolutely…
Lovely, lovely, lovely. And I think a lot of poetic or creative “types” are drawn to the romance inherent in the sciences. I know I am!
Yes. A mysterious siren call, don’t you think?
That’s one of the things I love about much of Madeleine L’Engle’s work–that mix of poetry and science.
Love Pat’s poem, and I am so wishing for a neighbor who watches for the Space Station to fly by.
…Wait a minute. Maybe I AM that neighbor. I’m the one standing (with hubby) out in the park near our home watching the total eclipse of the moon. People driving by stop to ask what we’re looking at and wind up getting out of their cars for a look through the binoculars or telescope…
Yes, it sounds like you are that neighbor. Good for you!
Gorgeous.
Love those haunting final lines. And
Or simply ups and disappears
Like some ascending-ending spheres,
Delicious.