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Astral Ant

By Harley White posted 12-21-2021 07:20

  



Credits: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgment: R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Lab) and B. Balick (University of Washington)



Astral Ant
 
 
I had an ‘ant colony’ as a child,
called ‘formicarium’ technically,
enclosed behind glass with tunnels unwild
to watch them move in their captivity.
 
The hours were many absorbedly spent
in wonder at how those creatures scurried,
until the thing broke and away they went
thus finding freedom as off they hurried.
 
In Aesop, Ant was anthropomorphized
to be hard-working in famous fable
where Grasshopper plainly epitomized
a frivolous stance for moral label.
 
The story which had a cicada first
took on sundry meanings through the ages
though still the version most widely dispersed
is parabolized in Aesop’s pages.
 
A nebula planetary, to wit
termed Menzel Three, as the ‘Ant’ also known
by virtue of strong resemblance to it
in thorax and head, by the Hubble shown
 
within constellation Norma’s small zone,
through dying star splendor, dazzles our eyes.
The ‘body’ of Ant bipolar was blown
from bright central core outflown in demise.
 
These fiery lobes in protuberant pair
of nebulosities, hour-glass in air,
are spheric with filamentary flair
outstretching in strands like wind-wafted hair,
 
an intricate scheme with pending queries
unanswered as yet though hypotheses
have been posed in assorted theories
pursuant to stargazing expertise.
 
While violent in ejection of gas,
symmetrical patterns of what’s expelled
occur, in lieu of what oft comes to pass
with ‘chaotic’ nebula sights beheld.
 
Hence image challenges ideas old
about future fate of our solar light.
Indeed what remains of that lantern gold
could be even fancier in its plight
 
of death with sidereal curtain call,
before going on to novel encore
from starry material wherewithal
to recreate beingness evermore…
 
Societies ant have always appealed
to various authors to write about
in poems or narratives far-afield,
a few from the many to single out,
 
for instance Mark Twain, seriocomic,
or Robert Frost in a similar vein,
to stray from our subject astronomic,
and Dostoevsky in passage germane
 
for human conduct and knowledge of selves,
each one in representative fashion,
among other volumes found on the shelves.
To look on our species with compassion
 
it seems quite amazing the strides we’ve made
in furthering exploration of space.
Yet proneness hubristic that’s overplayed
implies lack of mirror to see our face
 
with clarity, oh such an urgent need
in times when the senses appear diseased,
plus deaf to the truth and blinded with greed
from cravings unable to be appeased.
 
To finish on a less desolate stance
and bring to a close our celestial glance,
an ant is an ant, in its karmic chance,
engaged in its own special song and dance.
 
Said Einstein, attuned to humility,
who delved deep into the cosmos’ largesse,
with characteristic gentility,
‘Each day I learn more, but understand less.’
 
 
~ Harley White
 
 
* * * * * * * *
 
 
Some sources of inspiration were the following…
 
Quotes: “Every day we know more and understand less.” “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”
~ Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
 
Image and info ~ The Ant Nebula (Menzel 3): Fiery Lobes Protrude From Dying, Sun-like Star (NASA Hubble Site)…
https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2001/05/1020-Image.html 

Image explanation ~ Mz 3 (Menzel 3) is often referred to as the Ant Nebula because it resembles the head and thorax of a garden-variety ant. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the ‘ant’s’ body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from a dying, Sun-like star. It is a young bipolar planetary nebula (PN) in the constellation Norma that is composed of a bright core and four distinct high-velocity outflows that have been named lobes, columns, rays, and chakram…
 
Credits: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA);
Acknowledgment: R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Lab) and B. Balick (University of Washington)
 
 
#poetry
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