Darkness born from darkness
the beginning of all understanding
Tao te Ching, John H. McDonald, trans.
On an night when all possibilities seem open
when hills and towns and roads
dance and roll in my headlights
I muse on the dance of Higgs Bosons
across seeming emptinesses
matter forming and reforming
in deep space and time
in the most primeval dark
Copyright © 2020 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Some very interesting thoughts here from the Night Poet:
– Carl Sagan ~
Digitally enhanced image created from an original photo taken in February 2020.
© 2020 nightpoet all rights reserved
And we stand upon this globe
Asking of the Universe
What?
Recognition?
Salvation?
Whatever you please
In it’s glory
(Shown by our ingenuity and craft
As we build orbital telescopes)
The Universe does not need us
Unless as an observer
Are we here simply to watch?
Look up, look up
Glory awaits
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Orbital telescopes send home images
nebulae, glowing with colour
last remnants of fat, dying, exploded stars
lingering across the night sky
lighted by millennia old catastrophe
They are where the magic happens
atoms forged in burnt out stars
a deathbed bequest that has made us all
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Words cannot encompass this nebulaic magnificence
Glowing dust hides star birth from prying eyes
Stars that dwarf our own mother sun lurk in clouds lit by particle winds
Radiation surges and particle winds sculpt huge gas pillars
Gas that has fed billowing pregnant clouds and grown embryo stars
Glows in colours beyond our eyes capacity to see
This beauty has travelled for almost seven millennia to achieve our orbit
Photons radiating away from the stellar birthing place
Those remaining after absorption and reflection losses are here
Now washing our instruments with glory
Now humbling our eyes with truth
Copyright © 2016 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Inspired by February 5th Picture of the Day: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160205.html
Considering the expanding universe and ultimate cooling, I pause
remembering photos of star birth amid nebulosity,
nuclear furnaces blossoming.
Telescopes in orbit or secluded in foreign deserts
produce pictures in lights we cannot see
show immensities in glorious un-colours.
In the back garden, I look up, past scudding clouds,
watch coloured pinpricks arrayed over black sky
with occasional satellites twinkling by beneath.
Feeling the breeze, green with trees, redolent with life
thinking of all those things we cannot see
here and all the way up there.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
In the dew-drop abyss near
Wrecks of molecules appear;
In the far abyss of the sky
Wrecks of outworn worlds drift by…
But in the protean abyss of the soul
Wrecks of motes and universes roll.
by Theodore Stephanides, who should be familiar to all who love Gerald Durrell‘s “My Family and other Animals”. Theodore was a polymath, and wrote wonderful poetry.
Give me the night, for darkness is where creation happens.
That same night where fears emerge
in which the future cannot be seen
is also where love is made
where magic happens
where we are renewed.
Let there be light, but no, not yet.
Darkness enfolds, cherishes.
Dark matter and energy make up most of the universe
without them none of this would exist.
We were animated and brought into existence
by and in the dark.
Let us now go to the dark places for answers.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
I do like poems with an Astronomical bent, and here’s a wonderful one from Paul F. Lenzi:
“Solar Flare” by Dan Oliver
particle storms
shriek at inhuman
inaudible frequency
penetrate matter
lase holes through
the bones of minds
living and dead
mark acutely
the genomes of
all cosmic creatures
yet to be born
with the warning
that even the sun
is disposed to
explosions of rage
From my books Pieces of Wine and Legacies (vol.2)
Visitor from afar,
tracked by orbital telescopes
calculated trajectory indicating
an extra solar origin.
She is dropping past and zooming out.
Rock studded ice lump
possibly formed without a mother sun
in the darknesses between stars.
Interplanetary orphan,
we have only just spotted you.
Where are the others?
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
In honour of object A/2017 U1 , now visiting our solar system from who knows where.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/2017_U1
