Live Astronomy!, by me
Live Astronomy!, by me
Full moon glowing, ageless, wise;
Mercury’s in retrograde.
Glimpse of Ways in Milky skies—
Town-light leaves our tempers frayed.
Orion from the treeline leans in,
Belt and lengthy sword on show;
Shooting stars are in this season!
All this fog, you wouldn’t know.
Jupiter’s in opposition;
New moon lets the stars shine bright.
North Star stays in fixed position—
Neighbour gets an outside light.
Aurorae up North nightly swirling,
Reds and greens in silence streak;
Dancing ’til the dawn’s first calling!
Cloudy skies until next week.
— me
Sorry folks, another one from me. Growing up my Dad and I would spend hours peering into telescopes in our garden, and I was even able to take Astronomy as a GCSE thanks to my Physics teacher offering it as an extra study. Many nights of stargazing were foiled by this charming country’s charming weather.
BBC’s The Sky at Night was also a mainstay on our TV, and the name of this poem is inspired by an outtakes show that featured a recurring segment with this name taken from the BBC Archives, of Sir Patrick Moore in various decades saying, “well, the cloud has yet to clear but we’re still hoping to get a glimpse” (I think, anyway, his peppy accent was never that easy to understand).
The final stanza is a reflection of frustration following my recent trip to Hammerfest in the North of Norway, where Peter cheerfully told me the Northern Lights are, “up there pretty much all the time, when it’s dark” (so, most of the time). Cue clouds all week, which didn’t clear until two days after I left. Peter sent us a photo taken in the middle of a brightly lit street, aurora clearly on show.
Featured Image: at least I did get to see them – not quite as spectacularly with the naked eye – in Edinburgh last month.
TJC 
