Welcome!You have arrived at StarPoet, a comet falling toward morning. The poet's still here, Sappho's child, slightly disheveled.
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| A Chameleon Sky | ||
| The sands of time are running out for the central star of this the Hourglass Nebula. With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief, spectacular, closing phase of a sun-like star's life occurs as its outer layers are ejected and its core becomes a cooling, fading white dwarf. In 1995, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to make a series of images of planetary nebulae, including the one above. Here, delicate rings of colorful glowing gas (nitrogen-red, hydrogen-green, and oxygen-blue) outline the tenuous walls of the 'hourglass.' The unprecedented sharpness of Hubble's images revealed surprising details of the nebula ejection process and may resolve the outstanding mystery of the variety of complex shapes and symmetries of planetary nebulae. Image Credit: NASA, WFPC2, HST, R. Sahai and J. Trauger (JPL)... |
| Sea Change |
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| Poetry Cycles - Poems of Transition | |
| Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Thursday, 04 January 2007 15:09 | |
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Sea Change
The ocean rises over me as I stand in waters already to my waist.
Each wave top seems to block out the sunlight as it rolls over my head,
Cutting off my breath and pushing me back towards the shoreline
As it crashes around me. I stand firm, my body battered,
My lungs reaching for air, clinging to the hope that once it passes
I shall still be here as the ocean found me, poet and woman,
Sappho's child, slightly disheveled, the words still rushing through my veins
As I try to make sense of what the universe has given me.
I have loved, I love, and have been loved.
I have caused pain and undoubtedly will cause more.
I have been many things and I have been nothing
As I have pieced myself together. I have loved
And let people draw close.
There have been tears like the rain blurring out a windshield
In the midst of a sudden thunderstorm
That rattles you down to the bone
And sends cats scurrying to the safety of the underbed.
I have cried, I cry, and caused others to tears
As I have wandered my desert inconsistency.
Yet the ocean that crests above me will pass,
Tumbling me towards the sandy beach or pulling me under out to sea
To some brave new world filled with reality and not childish dreams.
I go where my current goes, whether it be
To some ragged cliff beneath the seabirds or
Some darkness only I will see.
A sea change comes over me, quickly now,
Changing everything and nothing, for the poet's still here
As lost as she has ever been, a voice in the wilderness
Between love and despair. I am who I have always been,
No closer now than I was when the journey began
But surer of my direction and who I am.
L. J. Thompson
September 2000
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| Last Updated on Thursday, 04 January 2007 15:36 |
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