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.