Thursday, April 11, 2019

PAD Day 11 Part 2: The Photo from Messier 87

Today's Poetic Asides prompt was to write a dedication poem. There was only one person in the news at the moment that I thought worthy of a dedication:





To Dr. Katie Bouman

When everything lined up -
your algorithm, the telescope signals -

when you displayed your array of hard drives,
dozens of them, all housing the bits and bytes
and years needed to accomplish this historic task -

when the photo went viral, a fiery iris
around an utterly black pupil, and people
called it many things, like "The Eye of Sauron" -

when we all realized we were staring at
a black hole, 55 million light-years away,
that we were looking into the darkest, densest
power of the universe, where everything
may go in the end, and we realize that you,
a woman not quite thirty (who could be my daughter),
 were able to bring it to us from those mind-blowing
reaches of space, and the camera caught you,
watching a monitor as the image finally assembled,
and you held your hands to your mouth,
trying in vain to contain your unbridled joy -

that's the kind of joy I want.




1 comment:

Vince Gotera said...

Unbridled joy, indeed! And who could blame her!