Best Astronomy Poems
Butterfly Nebula
Far away in the night
A sky full of stars
A song full of notes
A story full of words
And, most importantly…
A poem, full of Light!
I can not leave a picture, but if I could it would be the first one. #1 at the top of the list. The Butterfly Nebula. It is lovely indeed. Although they are all incredible. Thank you for sharing them.
The whole of a journey still to be traveled
is much like a novel begun
with threads of the story not yet unraveled
and windings of plot to be spun.
We’ve myriad paths to meander, assess.
The hours are long till midnight’s chime.
It seems like eternity, nevertheless,
‘tis only a twinkling in time.
The wise old mysterious owl, unsurpassed
at vigilance during the dark,
in the lore of the past could events forecast,
though lacking the song of the lark.
Still future tomorrows are anyone’s guess
when we’re in existence’s prime.
It seems like eternity, nevertheless,
‘tis only a twinkling in time.
Our lives stretch before us as endless array,
neath skies bright with starry wishes,
of vast possibilities all on display
or feast of enticing dishes.
To life’s great adventuring we acquiesce.
We’ve many a mountain to climb.
It seems like eternity, nevertheless,
‘tis only a twinkling in time.
The universe also has spans of ascent
(or multiverse, as some prefer,
having ‘bubbles’ in space of dimensions bent
with heavens discretely astir),
together with cycles of cosmic regress,
midst empyrean spheres sublime.
It seems like eternity, nevertheless,
‘tis only a moment in time.
On this earthly stage where we mortals play out
our shenanigans, seldom wise,
getting backed into corners with no way out,
till at last we open our eyes,
let’s endeavor our noblest selves to express
ere we bow out of pantomime,
for while seeming eternal, nevertheless,
‘tis only a moment in time…
~ Harley White
The year you left, I studied astronomy,
mapping distances that could not soften regret.
Fireflies stitched the meadow with threads of chartreuse,
while cooling tea darkened inside a chipped teacup.
Far across the valley, someone began to yodel,
and the sound drifted upward through late summer.
I remember that particular summer,
how you spoke of stars as though teaching astronomy
to a child who answered every question with a yodel
of delight. I did not know such joy could ripen into regret.
The moon floated pale beside your forgotten teacup,
and moths circled porchlight halos tinged chartreuse.
Even now, that color, impossible chartreuse,
returns with the first heat of summer.
I find myself reaching for the old teacup,
as if memory were a branch of astronomy,
as if one could chart the orbit of regret
the way sound crosses mountains in a yodel.
At dusk, coyotes answer one another. No yodel,
yet something in their calls recalls that chartreuse
evening when silence first seeded regret.
Crickets kept time beneath the summer
constellations. We spoke lightly of astronomy,
sharing the last cool sip from a single teacup.
For years I kept that faded teacup
on a shelf above my desk. Its painted yodel
of alpine flowers seemed unrelated to astronomy,
yet every petal carried traces of chartreuse
fields and vanished afternoons of summer.
I could never dust it free of regret.
The curious thing about regret
is how it settles into ordinary things: a teacup,
the scent of cut grass during summer,
a song that unexpectedly begins to yodel,
a scrap of ribbon bright as chartreuse,
or a paragraph in a book about astronomy.
ENVOI
What astronomy cannot measure is regret;
it lingers in a teacup long after summer.
One distant yodel still glows chartreuse.
Space is not clear, but it is deep.
It’s secrets, it will always keep.
On cloudless nights, great beauty’s seen;
beneath the moon’s long, radiant beams.
The stars, they always, greet with a wink;
You will miss them, if you blink
and telescopes aimed, will provide a show;
the thrill of passing, Saturn’s glow.
Delight will swell your ecstatic chest
and you’ll need to see the moon in crest.
No vision elsewhere can compare;
to the stellar activity, witnessed there.
Once you gain the viewing craze;
you’ll want to view it, every day.
An afterlife awaits a star
on having bid its au revoir
in supernova’s days of yore,
with remnant of collapsing core
impressionistic as Renoir.
The cosmos leaves the door ajar
for astral evolution far
with pulsar winds wherefrom outpour
an afterlife.
In vast sidereal memoir,
through brilliant stellar repertoire,
midst universe’s evermore
with skies our astro-eyes explore,
from starry stuff we humans are
an afterlife.
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * * *
“We are made of stellar ash. Our origin and evolution have been tied to distant cosmic events. The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.”
~ Carl Sagan, Cosmos
The poem is a rondeau ~ a short poem of fixed form, consisting of 13 lines (plus the phrase twice) on two rhymes and having the opening words or phrase used in two places as an unrhymed refrain.
Inspiration for poem from article and image ~ G292.0+1.8: Stellar Forensics with Striking Image from Chandra
Explanation from Chandra ~ This supernova remnant shows us just how complex a star’s afterlife can be! About 20,000 light years from Earth, G292.0+1.8 contains a pulsar left behind after the death of a massive star, as well as other features that give scientists insight into supernova remnant evolution.
Wonders of the world abound
on our earthly stomping ground,
in the seven seas profound,
midst the heavens round us wound.
Images from reaches vast
by astronomers amassed
show in varicolored cast,
cosmic glories unsurpassed,
stories of the great immense,
begging questions why and whence,
scenes stelliferously dense,
bringing past to present tense.
Oh how tantalizing to
lose oneself in starry view
of galactic vision new
where a poet’s words ring true!
Tennyson’s ‘Far--Far—Away’,
penned for Music’s haunting play
with the sounds the words convey
as they whisper, swing and sway,
tells of ‘far’ from past long gone,
murmur from ‘his own life’s dawn’?
breath where ‘doors of death’ go on
through an open curtain drawn?
Whether time or space be meant,
or spacetime together bent,
still, whatever sense is lent,
far’s remote in its intent.
After sunset’s crimson blaze
we may raise a dreamy gaze
in escape from troubled days
to celestial splendors praise.
Will our search of cosmic sphere
teach us to esteem what’s here?
Oft stargazers too I fear
must look far to see the near.
~ Harley White
The study of stars,
planets, and other celes-
Tial bodies.
Stunning tail-light of eve
Sweeps across the heavens
Streaked with chrome blue tassels:
Swift the leap glossed by dust
Spin of Hailey's Comet,
Streams quickly... then fades off!
Pleiades Contest of Joseph May
10/6/2020
My genealogical family tree
was traced by a relative distant,
thus uncovering ancestral names for me,
of some who had seemed nonexistent.
The past came alive in my fantasy world
with visions of settings dramatic,
as I felt myself in scenario hurled
that verged on a theme operatic.
Some fancies akin rose from imagery mix
of five different wavelengths and hues
in Wide Field, of NGC one eight six six,
with orange-red old stars, young in blues.
It’s a globular cluster considered strange
in Dorado constellation found,
with sidereal periods of wide range,
hence a stelliferous bunch renowned.
One hundred sixty thousand light-years away
from Earth, at Large Magellanic’s brink
(a galaxy cloud turning round Milky’s sway),
this massive multitude seems to sync
youthful stars with others from former ages,
through metallicity analyzed,
dissimilar in stellar saga stages,
which left astronomers quite surprised,
because it appeared unexpectedly young.
James Dunlop, credited with the act
of discovery, still has his praises sung
for listing a host of stars in fact.
Indeed, it was in eighteen twenty-six that
the Scottish stargazer spied the group
noteworthy, and catalogued where it was at,
assigning a label to the troop.
In the case of this cluster Hubble captured
with varied residents in the crowd,
perhaps a new star batch was manufactured
in rendezvous with a huge gas cloud,
as in a cosmic orchestral creation
with melodies that interrelate,
scored by composer of stellar vocation
for astronomical concert great.
An opus like Handel’s, supernally grand,
might sound and resound in the cluster,
with symphonic reach universally spanned,
in radiant star-studded luster,
while music mellifluous echoes in spheres,
or so my reveries rhapsodize,
to harmonies chorused by stellary peers
that resonate through celestial skies.
Generations of humankind here on Earth,
measured in cadenced metrical bars,
could be likened to fugue theming death and birth…
Might we be analogous to stars?
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * * *
Inspiration, image and info ~ Some of the Stars in this Cluster are Almost as Old as the Universe Itself While Others Formed in a Second Generation. It Looks Young and Old at the Same Time…
A mind inquisitive will find
while looking out upon the world
that myriads of whys unwind
from raveled webs in queries whirled
by skies above and realms below.
There’s always more than we can know.
If contemplating mysteries
of life’s existence here in space
along with astro-histories
within our cosmical embrace,
the awe one feels will surely show.
There’s always more than we can know.
In famous drama by the Bard,
where Ghost is spotted ‘wondrous strange‘
by castle sentries standing guard,
mid ‘sworn to secrecy’ exchange,
says Hamlet to Horatio,
‘There’s more than you can dream to know
‘on earth in heaven, countless things
in your philosophy not taught.’
(And so begin misfortune’s slings.)
To summarize his gist of thought
in passage ever apropos:
There’s always more than we can know.
Some think that memorizing facts,
despite their changing through the years
as seen in how mankind reacts
when ruled by prejudice and fears,
amounts to understanding, though
there’s always more than we can know.
The gladiola in delight
will bloom as forces lure her on.
Bright stars o’er-sprinkle dark of night
but fade from sight with breaking dawn.
Thus Nature’s cycles come and go.
Yet there’s much more that we can know.
Vast marvels may await our gaze
beyond imagination’s ken
by polishing away the haze
to clear enlightened vision, then
shall fountains of deep wisdom flow…
There’s always more than we can know!
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * * *
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.”
~ Albert Einstein ~ ”Old Man’s Advice to Youth: ‘Never Lose a Holy Curiosity’” LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64…
The poem is written in verse, having stanzas with refrain…
Inspiration was derived from various passages from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, by William Shakespeare, in particular the following…
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159–167
A spider web is wondrous made
with interwoven threads o’erlaid
of sticky strands to snare the prey
in intricately shaped display
like filamented promenade.
High up, in galaxy brigade
agrouped through gravity obeyed
in Hydra’s grip the stars portray
a spider web.
‘Midst Nature’s splendorous parade
on cloths of heavenly brocade
as earthly spider spins its way
so cosmic galaxies convey
enlaced within galactic glade
a spider web.
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * *
The poem is a rondeau…
Info ~ Flies in a spider’s web: galaxy caught in the making (ESA)…
Info and image ~ Spiderweb galaxy (MRC 1138-262) Hubble (Wikimedia)…
Explanation: The Spiderweb Galaxy (PGC 2826829, MRC 1138-262) is an irregular galaxy which is 10.6 billion light years away. It is located in the southern constellation of Hydra (the water snake) and is one of the most massive galaxies known. Hubble images provided a dramatic glimpse of a large massive galaxy under assembly as dozens of smaller galaxies merge through mutual gravitational attraction. This provides the best demonstration so far that large massive galaxies form by merging smaller ones.
While astronomy,
Is related to the stars;
Planets does include.
With trepidation,
Concentrated on remarks;
Effects that they had.
Am now close to death;
What to me matters the most;
Will be heaven bound.
Used dead reckoning
On typographical map,
To find destiny.
Umbilical cord,
Connects baby with the womb,
So life will begin.
Jim Horn
Is there a stellar orb that’s last,
beyond beyonds of cosmic vast?
I can’t imagine such a thing,
no matter where my thoughts take wing,
for always there would be one more
at least, if not an endless store.
Yet let my flight of fancy soar,
through door beyond the furthest door
and plumb the muses’ reservoir
where heavens’ portals are ajar
by searching yon the farthest star
to where celestial dreamers are
with everlasting repertoire.
Oh I would wave a wishing wand
o’er stars beyond the last beyond,
and sail the seas of welkin’s realm
undaunted by the waves that whelm
with vision to perceive unseens
beyond illusion’s shrouding screens.
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * *
This was newly written for a poetry contest on All Poetry with the same name as my poem's title…
Astronomy club. After school.
Search for moon in vain. Play with telescope.
Stare at clouds. Learn to juggle.
Admire Mr. Milligan (Clym Yeobright)
and the invisible stars.
Two Empire State Buildings fly by Earth
Phobos will crash into Earth on Mars Day
Careless Martians created our universe in Pluto's lab
Pluto walks a tightrope over underestimated solar flares