Monthly Archives: April 2014
absurd light in silence
Optimism
Change your spot on the map
The Local Merger
Let’s go for a creek walk

Image of Titan’s surface taken by the Huygens probe on January 14, 2005. Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Let’s go for a creek walk
you and I
and skip rocks across
the methane
and maybe we could picnic
in a spot with a view
of the etherized sun
that might as well be
sunset on a foggy beach
back home.
Let’s go for a creek walk
you and I
and turn over some rocks
that are not
gneiss, schist, or quartz.
but leave the bucket behind.
I’m not expecting to find crawfish
this time.
I’ve walked a lot of creeks
in my life
some with fast water
some with slow
some with no
and trust me
we need to check this one out.
Blue stragglers

APOD for April 9, 2012, “Blue Straggler Stars in Globular Cluster M53.” Image credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA
They are vagabonds,
rebels,
as stars go.
Refusing to sit still
and age to red
they wander off script
and siphon some beauty
off a binary companion.
The light touch-up
works.
In pictures,
they look FAB-U-LOUS
bluer
and seemingly younger than their peers
though anyone who reads
the cautionary label on the product knows
they’re burning out
faster.
I am not an idle dreamer
I am on Earth right now / I am NOT on Earth right now (a diptych)

The phrase “I am on Earth right now” comes from NASA’s “Global Selfie” initiative for Earth Day today. Underlying image to the left was taken by the Juno spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems). Underlying image to the right is from an old out-of-print work. The diptych “hinge” was created from photos of the ISS’s solar array.
I am indebted to Dr. David Grinspoon for proposing “I am not on Earth right now” as a counterpoint. Without his insight, this piece would not have been born.