~ Harley White * * * * * * * * * The poem is a pantoum… A pantoum is a poem in a fixed form, consisting of a varying number of four-line stanzas with lines rhyming alternately; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated to form the first and third lines of the succeeding stanza, with the first and third lines of the first stanza forming the second and fourth of the last stanza, but in reverse order, so that the opening and closing lines of the poem are identical
~ Harley White * * * * * * * * Some sources of inspiration were the following… “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” (Wikipedia)… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkle%2C Twinkle%2C Little Star Reference to poem “Crossing the Bar”, an 1889 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson… Mozart: 12 Variations “Ah, vous dirai-je, maman” KV 265 (Clara Haskil)… https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Analogies are found where’er the human gaze may peer on land and ocean here and there or in the cosmic sphere like chambered nautilus on high in poem Holmes composed, as flights of fancy freely fly to wonders undisclosed whence one may leave the shell innate, delusion’s bounded plane, and reach a true enlightened state to sail on boundless main… ~ Harley White * * * * * * * * Some sources of inspiration were the following… “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in
~ Harley White * * * * * * * * * The poem is in sonnet form… Some sources of inspiration were the following… Was Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ inspired by a scientific drawing?
~ Harley White * * * * * * * * The poem is a rondeau… Info ~ Flies in a spider’s web: galaxy caught in the making (ESA)… https://www.esa.int/Science Exploration/Space Science/Flies in a spider s web galaxy caught in the making Info and image ~ Spiderweb galaxy (MRC 1138-262) Hubble… https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spiderweb galaxy (MRC 1138-262) Hubble.jpg Explanation: The Spiderweb Galaxy (PGC 2826829, MRC 1138-262) is an irregular galaxy which is 10.6 billion light years away
’ ~ Harley White * * * * * * * * Some sources of inspiration were the following… Poem “Stars”, by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) https://allpoetry.com/poem/8504573-Stars-by-Sara-Teasdale Image and info ~ Arp 147 (Wikipedia)… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arp 147 Explanation: Arp 147 (also known as IC 298) is an interacting pair of ring galaxies
If ‘hope is the thing with feathers– that perches in the soul– while singing the tune which weathers– the gales that take their toll– ‘a melody– to never cease– like birdsong sweet– which stays– and gives the suffering release–’ to Dickinson rephrase, then surely such angelic sight that’s hovering on high against the cosmos darkened night can paint for us a sky where hope might flutter in our hearts for future’s open door with yet unknown galactic arts existing evermore… And even midst a piercing grief which brings unbidden gloom that wordless song could sound relief for dawn of dulcet doom, much as the galactic blending while turbulent we’re told, within an apparent ending hails newness to behold… ~ Harley White * * * * * * * * Some sources of inspiration were the following… “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream
‘We know not even one thousandth as yet,’ to paraphrase an Einstein quote, ‘of one percent of what great nature’s net of clues has already revealed;’ so let us learn a bit from what he wrote and appetite for awakening whet, on worldly stage where we devote our little lives to the fates we beget, recorded in ceaseless cosmic cassette perchance ‘midst symphony remote yet nigh, with strings fiddled at every fret, with now and then a fluted note from earthly mother’s sylvan throat o’er river where we row our boat, as in this bubble world we float, seen faintly in sibylline silhouette behind our sensorial parapet… ~ Harley White * * * * * * * * Some sources of information were the following… “We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us
~ Harley White * * * * * * * * * The poem is a rondeau… Image ~ Cat Star Sky Moon ~ Public Domain Pictures Net… https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?
1 Comment - Harley, your poem is really beautiful!
~ Harley White * * * * * * * * Passages from ‘Alastor’, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) Image and info ~ Meet Earendel, the Most Distant Star Astronomers Have Observed ~ Sky & Telescope (March 30, 2022)… https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/meet-earendel-most-distant-star-astronomers-have-observed/ Image and info ~ Hubble Space Telescope Spots Most Distant Star Ever Seen ~ Scientific American… https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hubble-space-telescope-spots-most-distant-star-ever-seen/ Info ~ Record Broken: Hubble Spots Farthest Star Ever Seen ~ NASA… https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/record-broken-hubble-spots-farthest-star-ever-seen Image explanation: The most distant star yet seen, called Earendel, is indicated by an arrow in the inset of this image from the Hubble Space Telescope that captured the star from 12.9 billion light-years away using a gravitational lens
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