When Observing Galaxies
Two Poems
I had a great session with the homebuilt “SRT-8” telescope last night: a homebuilt 8” f/6 dob with a Zambuto mirror, using mostly a 22mm Panoptic eyepiece and…
Well then the night wind showed up and I sat back and looked up and some poems wandered by.
Why We Name Things
Oh, what do we do with the hawk’s cry in the fresh wind
or the train whistle in the lonely night?
I sit on the deck, the stardeck, and peer into the deep
A porch light glances off the side of the house, and the vinyl siding suddenly
gives way from reality, turns to a whaling ship
Vega, ahoy I yell to some captain, spying her as she rises sparkling in the east, resplendent in her blue white evening gown
Then I’m back to the eyepiece, scanning, scanning, for leviathans that yield billions of stars
What else can I do but name the galaxies, these whales, with some dull number like NGC 4631?
If I darted them, they’d drag my harpoon line to infinity too fast
I’d go clean off my rocker
Wouldn’t you?
The only way to stay sane when the elephant is in the room is to stuff him
mount him
reduce him
describe his habits
as if you
understood.
Let me tell you about the specifications of the telescope.
Put It In The Cloud, Put It In The Sky, or Observing Galaxies With A Small Backyard Telescope
There! That sprinkling of stars. Some say it’s the tuft of Leo’s tail
But I know it’s something I’ve always searching for and haven’t found yet.
Ah! I hear the cricket frogs strike up a chorus, and the night breeze prowls like
Leo must have once.
A ghost, a glimmer, something spied through a lens
They say it’s a galaxy, four hundred billion stars, but why
do I suddenly remember a cold Sunday afternoon in the city and getting cheap Chinese food as the January wind swept the street outside, unable to bother the steam of the tea
delicious
and the carp sadly moving in their tank in the window?
Look at another smudge in the deep, and smell the moonflowers in the dewy garden of some long ago neighbor, or hear the laughter of some girl as she walks away into the dusk
forever?
Fragments, bits, put it in the cloud my computer is always suggesting, put it in a journal my father says, put it in the sky sounds crazy
Maybe it’s already there
Tucked far away in spiral arms
The laughter you can’t hear when you see my grandmother’s wedding picture and everyone looks so young
Where does it all go?
–Josh
Dusk falls and it’s nearly time to set sail.