Astro Poetry

Evening Star
Translation by James Kirkup

The Moon lies red
on fog-shrouded horizons;
under weaving mists
the plain falls in smoky sleep,
frogs cry in shivering reeds.

Waterlilies close
their corollas; far poplars
stand silhouetted,
stiff-close-set, uncertain ghosts;
fireflies seek the shrubberies;

owls wake, soundlessly
labour black air with heavy
pinions; the Zenith
fills with hooded lamps. - White,
Venus appears. - It is night.

L'Heure Du Berger
Paul Verlaine

La Lune est rouge au brumeux horizon;
Dans un brouillard qui danse la prairie
S'endort fumeuse, et la grenouille crie
Par les joncs verts ou circule un frisson;

Les fleurs des eaux referment leurs
corolles;
Des peupliers profilent aux lointains,
Droits et serres, leurs spectres incertains;
Vers les buissons errent les lucioles;

Les chats-huants s'eveillent, et sans bruit
Rament l'air noir avec leurs ailes lourdes,
Et le Zenith s'emplit de lueurs sourdes.
Blanche, Venus emerge, et c'est la Nuit.

It is nightfall; the clouds have vanished;
The sky is clear,
Pure and cold.
Silently I watch the River of Stars
Turning in the Jade Vault.

(Su T'ung-Po)

From: Burnham's Celestial Handbook, vol. 3, p. 1625, in the section on the Milky Way

And the sun
Having risen into darkness
Outshines the stars
And moves to its place in the heavens.

Above homes and houses.
Over the high-rises and the towers,
Over trees and mountains,
Above the stately earth and the sombre seas,
The day grows long
And breakfasts become lunchtimes become tea times
And the slow slipping sun
Drops toward the same sea or ground
A thousand miles removed.

It falls behind forest and hill,
Falls behind buildings and dwellings
Into the other place below the land
Where the stars have gone
And darkness lies in wait for light to match it.

Having fallen
Having set
The sun

- Brian Hill, A Celestial Journey
 

This Southern Hemisphere, so far from home,
Rolls beneath my keel like a river.
I am crossing water,
Without the pole star leading,
To go where different winds
Will blow the stars together,
And mix them like oil paint.
Blow the stars together,
Mix them like oil paint,
Brush them with clouds’
Paint the stars with black weather,
And cloud them with rain,
Murderous rain slanting on a gale’s edge

- Brian Hill, A Celestial Journey
 

To his Heart, bidding it have no Fear

Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;
Remember the wisdom out of the old days:
Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he has no part
With the lonely, majestical multitude

- W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
 

WHERE IS THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE?
Now you can always draw an edge and say you've found the middle
But that's not the universe. It's just a kind of fiddle.
The universe is really like a string, or something round.
The centre of the universe is nowhere to be found

LET THERE ALWAYS BE LIGHT (on the search for dark matter)
For this we go out dark nights, searching
For the dimmest stars
For signs of unseen things
To weigh us down
To stop the universe
From rushing on and on
Into its own beyond
Till it exhausts itself and lies down cold
Its last star going out


CARNAL KNOWLEDGE
Having picked the final datum
From the universe
And fixed it in its column
Named the causes of infinity
Performed the calculus of the imaginary 'i' it seems
The body aches
To come too
To the light
Transmit the grace of gravity
Impress its own algebra
 

ANTIDOTES TO FEAR OF DEATH
Sometimes as an antidote
To fear of death
I eat the stars

- Rebecca Elsen, astronomer (1960-1999)

BALLAD OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
Oh, it was wild and weird and wan, and ever in camp o'nights
We would watch and watch the silver dance of the mystic Northern lights
And soft they danced from the Polar sky and swept in primrose haze
And swift they pranced with their silver feet, and pierced with a blinding haze

- Robert Service

 

BENNETT'S COMET
Bennett's comet, firesphere forehead, flame-flail-tail, swept
In curved oval, o'er the velvet pile of star-set sky
And thrashed, drew through the solar wind. It leapt
Up to the moon, a soft moth's simple scale. A sigh
Of wind-worked leaves, that scratched the secret space

- Anne Yvonne Erli

1ST MEN ON MERCURY
We come in peace from the third planet
Would you take us to your leader?
Bawe Stretter! Bawr. Bawr. Stretterhawl
This is a little plastic model
of the solar system, with working parts
You are here and we are there
and now here with you, is this clear?
Gawl horrpo. Bawr. Abbawrhannahanna!

A HOME IN SPACE
A voyaging generation voyaging, and as far
as far as there would ever be a home in space
space that needs time, and time that needs life

THE MOONS OF JUPITER - IO
The laser probes, the belts the brilliant console
Sat dark and motionless, crawled through by smoke
Sulphur blew to choke the very soul

THE WORLDS
New phases of the moon
real canals for mars
The planets lift their bones
and roar like megalosaurs
Time has entered space.
Earth is again the centre
and the favoured place

- Edwin Morgan