NaPoWriMo 2014 Post 12: Catching up with Isaac.

If I explained this journey to Newton,
DC to Cape Town
by airplane,
He'd think me a madman.

Amsterdam and Jupiter
would seem familiar
enough.
He'd know the value
of telescopes.
But catching him up
on Washington and CCDs
and the NSF
would be rough going
assuming he didn't tune me out
to muse about numerology.

I bet he'd follow
the restricted three body problem
in no time, though,
and he'd likely be quietly
disappointed I wasn't using
a Newtonian.

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 11: Women with capes

If the Mercury Seven were the Fantastic Four
and Smallville predated Peenemünde,
in a world more Sivana than Sagan,
why would we look? Why
would we go?

Does Metropolis University
offer an astronomy degree?
Are their sample return capsules
carried by women with capes?

At least
planetary defense strategies
seem straightforward there.
Still, I suspect
I might have gone into the
restoration business.

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 10: The Summer Cottage

They thought of it as a starter home
but it was more of a fixer-upper
than they'd hoped;
The awning was down,
the power was out,
and the nearest hardware store was
hundreds of miles away
at best.

The chores piled up
and there was always something else
to do
as if they'd waste away
otherwise.
Sometimes they just wanted to
trade records with the neighbors
and sit watching the water.

After a few summers there
their ride disappeared.
They kept hoping to come back
but the elements
brought down the cottage
into the water.

They never did have the neighbors over,
though they did hitch
their camper vans together
and drink vodka.
Did they all look longingly
at the Moon overhead?

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 9: Children of the Fire God

Everywhere there can be asteroids
we find them:
filling the space between planets,
orbiting with planets
with paths crossing planets.
We find them every place
but one.

Children of the fire god,
we expected them huddled close.
Descriptions abound, like mermaids
or unicorns or jungle walruses
we think know what we're looking for.

But we've received no messages,
only seen trails of inbound cruisers
shedding their coats
for a few moments of sun.
No forged corundum,
just a conundrum.

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 8: The Neighbor Girl

I've been wondering about the neighbor girl.
She's so obviously bright
but I think she had a turbulent past.
It's hard to get through and see
what she's really about.

I know she used to see someone--
it seemed serious.
But I think that ended a while ago.
Some friends checked on her and said
she's still steaming.
Maybe we should drop by ourselves?

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 7: Consolation

There are uncounted ways
things could have gone
wrong for us
here.
Too red a sun
or too blue,
too weak a magnetic field,
too little ozone.

This could be a
more violent
neighborhood,
niceties aside,
or Jupiter could have been
a party-crasher,
sending Mercury rising.

This is, admittedly,
little consolation
for the passenger pigeon.

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 6: We mostly fail

We mostly fail,
with uncontrolled controls
and undetected impurities.
We fail with bugs hidden
in uncommented code
and non-negligible effects
neglected anyhow.
We fail from changing skies
and sub-standard standard stars.

We fail by misestimating costs,
we fail by misapprehending risks,
we fail by overselling our instruments,
we fail by letting ourselves
be rushed
and pressured
and talked into things.

We mostly fail,
and we mostly know it.

But when we succeed
we know that, too.