Such wonderful sightings James Webb can see
(Ed Hubble, too), a vaster astronomy,
a real sense of Love's Cosmology.
Each transmitted image is a new discovery,
recorded and delivered skillfully,
nor subject to time's withering agency.
But ancient Poets and their poetry
declared those wonders (in the first century,
I think it was, in the era called "BC");
their lines are still available to read---
of Eros and his boyfriend, Ganymede
whose constellation is the Aquarius;
as well as the stars of the Antinous
(though its placement is not so obvious).
Starward
Author's Notes/Comments:
The third line alludes to 1 John 4:8 (read through the commutative property of arithmetic.
My first career ambition, at about six years old (and largely due to the montage of deep space objects that concluded each episode of The Outer Limits) was to be an astronomer. A family friend gave me a large box crammed full of old astronomy magazines, and for my eighth birthday, I was given a small, but still workable, telescope. However, Neighbor Doris across the street had convinced my parents that strong interest in any one subject constituted obsession, and it would lead to Homosexuality (her case in point was another neighbor, who was close to graduating high school, and who had amassed a knowledge of William Shakespeare's plays that seemed positively uncanny). Therefore, the astronomy magazines mysteriously vanished from our home, and the telescope was placed up out of my reach, to be taken down only for the most special events. Neighbor Doris no longer draws breath in this world; no great loss.
