Not going up there – nope – not going
Branches sway and bounce
Cold and harsh are winter winds
One lone bird blows by
Kate Rauner
NASA’s computer-generated image representing space debris as seen from high Earth orbit.
Space is vast and empty,
But not space close at hand,
Not the space around the Earth.
Our orbit now is jammed.
Every satellite we launch
Will someday be defunct
And hang above us, orbiting,
As billion dollar junk.
Everyone who’s serious
About the new space age
Has a plan for dealing with
Our quickly-closing cage.
Perhaps we’ll net the pieces,
Or blast each till it falls
To burn up like a meteor
In our atmospheric wall.
The million pieces of debris
Could trap us on our planet
Since even just a fleck of paint
Could crash a ship titanic.
Where is ET, we wonder?
Why don’t aliens
come to us?
Perhaps they’re trapped on their own worlds
By spheres of
their own
space junk.
Kate Rauner
The scifi movie Gravity began with space junk smashing a Shuttle, and that could happen in real-life. Read about laser and giant electric whip proposals to clean up near-Earth space. There’s a video here.
Another Eclipse 2017 poem, inspired by my journey to the eclipse centerline in the Boise National Forest – hurray for America’s public lands. The path of totality was about 70 miles wide for this eclipse and crossed the continent. The difference between 99% and 100% totality is day and night. Even a sliver of the sun’s disk is too bright to look at naked-eye and loses the corona in the glare. Well worth the travel and deserving of a rhyme.
The car is packed, we could escape
A zombie apocalypse,
But on this trip instead we chase
A total solar eclipse.
Nebraska may be cloudy
So Idaho’s our bet.
We carry everything we need, for
The best view we can get.
From the mountains of New Mexico
Through ponderosa pine,
A partial isn’t good enough,
We seek the centerline.
On the plains of Arizona
Our camping gear’s a plus.
The centerline is farther north
And so push-on we must.
Keep the gas tank topped,
There could be short supplies
Cause people are converging
To gaze into the sky.
Blood red rocks of Utah,
The finest that we see,
We leave behind without a stop
To chase totality.
Squirrels chirp out their annoyance, as
In Idaho we climb,
To a forest meadow,
To the centerline.
Eclipse camp
There’s time to lounge in camp
But First Contact will come soon
On the centerline
In the shadow of the Moon.
by Kate Rauner
Perfect conditions and a happy surprise – sunspots! It’s the bottom of the cycle so we weren’t expecting that. They don’t affect the eclipse – just add to viewing fun. Read more about the eclipse here.
Projection of Sun shortly after First Contact
Silver sky at dawn
Hammered on the fierce anvil
Of a stormy night
by Kate Rauner
2nd edition now available! Expanded!
Find more poetry inspired by science and nature here on my blog – every other post or so. Or read one of my collections of rhyming poetry and a few haiku too.
A humongously enlarged museum model, image by Janine and Jim Eden
What’s the toughest animal,
A lion or a bear?
Or you and me with our dominion
Over others’ prayers?
What tolerates the cosmic rays,
Curled in a dried-out ball,
What can survive a vacuum
Or hottest heat
or coldest cold?
The microscopic tardigrade
Looks like a critter should,
With feet and head and funny face,
It’s kinda cute and good.
In half a billion years evolved
A thousand speciations
To beat the competition
And earn
our exclamations.
Who will be here
to greet the gods
As final days of Earth unfold?
It won’t be me,
it won’t be you.
The tardigrade
will fill that role.
by Kate Rauner
2nd edition now available! Expanded!
There are articles every now and then about the tardigrade, a wee beastie worth contemplating.
Join me here for a new science-inspired poem about once a week, or read my collection today on Amazon or your favorite store. All for fun and no existential angst.
Like a ghost I move
Carried on my silent paws
See, hear, smell the prey
by Kate Rauner
All my books, including collections of my science-inspired poetry, are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and other major online retailers. You’ll also find paperbacks at Create Space and all major digital formats at Smashwords. Read one today.
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Smoke from summer fires
Flows thick down dry arroyos
Ghost of rivers lost
by Kate Rauner
2nd edition now available! Expanded!
All my books, including collections of my science-inspired poetry, are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and other major online retailers. You’ll also find paperbacks at Create Space and all major digital formats at Smashwords. Read one today.
Signup to receive an occasional offer and a piece of my flash fiction at http://eepurl.com/bCpx1v
