Perspective
i.
From this vantage, Mercury and Mars
hang parenthetical, closed sentences
while the rest of the galaxy is translucent
floating caravels in a mesmerising battalion
This hill, with its cloak of wind and solace
allows me to reach and stroke Venus
peering into the beginnings of things
You stand beside me in that tan, torn coat
as stellar showers squint in sombre, velvet sky
ii.
How large our curiosity looms, your knot-thick
hands clasp the vertigo of a volcanic ridge
These figures eminent, exclamation marks
to history. You said it’s important
to see more than we’re told to
Discerning light from the observatory
on Siding Spring Mountain
deciphering knowledge, perpendicular
iii.
Bob Dylan sings of an almost-hidden
moon as every note falls to the ground
perfectly re-formed. Each vowel
running its fingers over my back
anticipation of answers and comfort
Lyrics, contorting chronology
Orpheus, weeping
We talk about absolutely everything
hoarding hyperbole
We are astronomical interferometers
calculating our distance
iv.
Simone Weil said: Truth is on this side of death
The cat is both alive and dead
and looking out the window
Warrumbungle National Park
cradling all hope
v.
Astronomers rarely need to look up
instruments detect invisible signals
Lists of graphs, diagrams, numbers
chart the unknown, unheard, unsung
You arrive home, warm by the fire
opening your mouth to speak –
phrases, un-tamed as strands of string
possibilities opening up like a box
Cosmos Revisited
Science is a way of thinking, much more than it is a body of knowledge.
Carl Sagan
i.
Sitting with a postcard my friend
has sent me from Izmir
flicking the corners with my thumbnail
listening to ‘Mood Indigo’
whipping up theories
on the beginnings of life
I think of myself
as I did when I was a child
without Earth, without space
without time
ii.
Books become a communal memory
not stored in our genes or in our brains
submerging inside my worn copy of Cosmos
compositions of curiosity & science
the postcard talks of Byzantine emperors
museums, rivers & ridges to the south
the words in both: stellar literary records
long threads of history held in my hands
a feeling of cosmic loneliness
& galactic togetherness
iii.
Time & space are fused:
it takes around seventy-two years
for the light of Mu Cygni to reach Earth
each time we scope this binary star system
we are looking at it when Hubble was peering through the Hale Telescope
saying: hope to find something we had not expected
the physics world was celebrating work on cosmic rays
& my grandparents
had barely known one another
still too shy to ask each other out to a dance
iv.
All things are relative
imagine a time before nuclear power
before industry
before libraries, before language
when we were governed by instinct
where we lived by sound & rawness
when we feared storms
when we revered nature
when we lived by cycles
a time of survival
when we couldn’t find a lodestar
when we didn’t know how to name it
before the neo-cortex, the limbic system
in the early days of the R-complex
before we could taste & smell
when we were single-cells
before sex was invented
before rock was formed
before planets cooled
before matter
a time before time
v.
We bond together in starstuff
with sit-coms, war, particle accelerators
physics problems, pimples before a date
politics, famine, cause & effect, surfing
cryogenics, gene manipulation, buildings
backgammon, phone calls, parents, empathy
music, postcards & apple pie from scratch
as Carl Sagan said:
these are just a few of the things
hydrogen atoms do
given
fifteen billion years of evolution
Physics of Mourning
We live in a world of unfolding and becoming
John Polkinghorne
Time is only a process
not physically positioned
in space or in this room
I massaged your aching feet
the lilies spill into the light
Einstein’s theory of special relativity
confirms time slows or speeds
depending on how fast you move –
relative to something else. I am
completely still, you have disappeared
Time has duration. Our conversations
were endless. They began before they started
one night you pulled me closer
to hear your words on how hope
replenished your universe. The magnitude
of your kindness elevating the new moon
Frames of reference help the observer
measure an event. I remember how you
liked your coffee, how your face would tilt
towards the Sun but your hands are lost to me
as if they just fell away at the bottom of a page
The dog doesn’t know where to sleep
no-one knows where you hid your letters
Gravity forcing me to sit quietly as I try
not to collapse. This weight of grief –
a trillion goodbyes at once. Time is not
the barrier, time is only the conduit
in which your memory travels back
a clock face, windowless without expression
affirming you are not here
but were everywhere, once
Your yesterdays behind you –
now extend in front of me
Stellar Atmospheres can be found here.