The Astronomer

Undeterred by the paucity of material, I will probably write a new blog post later today. But for now here is the fruit of my latest poetic mood, in second draft form. The rhythm and rhyming are incidental, the excess conjunctions will have to be weeded out later, and I had two philosophical stanzas towards the end which need to be replaced or totally discarded eventually and have therefore been left out here. What can't be changed is that the whole poem is a cliché. The scene is an indeterminate Italian town roughly during the Renaissance and the protagonist is (obviously) Galileoesque.

* * *

Spirally he treads the steps
between the quadrant of the stony walls
where the torches’ twisted circle
flickers in the gusting evening wind.

The streets are dappled by the moon
and here and there an estranged sheen
points to eave or weathercock
or the shining fissure of glassed window.

The rim of hills lies weighty
and the church’s domes rise firm
as beyond the sea the seeping sun
leaves behind its trace of green.

The noise of day has ceased to be
though the wavering drone of revelry
may fill the taverns and trickle into streets
and furtive carts may straggle by.

So the hollow suffering of the wind
the creak and groan of distant door
and the muffled shuffle-shuffle
of his slippers are the only sounds he hears.

He rises in the tightwalled tower
with much less ease than long before,
the cobwebbed corners not alone
in bearing marks of bygone years.

But at the top the hobbit’s door
opens to a familiar scene
of crabbed table, chair, and bookshelf
pens and ink and telescope.

Its darkness yields to candlelight,
the startled glimmer of the mice’s eyes
as they abandon leather tomes
and seek a different stuff to nibble.

With disregard he sets his candle
close beside the telescope
and pats the coppery sheath, its dents,
and lifts his sleeve to wipe the lens.

He sets ajar another casement
snaking moonlight passes in
and with it breezes coolly ruffle
the parchment and the plumy quill.

What forces stir the light and wind,
which might controls the roaming stars,
what forces bring their lustre near
and bend the glass to such far sight?

[. . .]

He ponders but he cannot know.
For now he holds himself content
to watch the passing of the stars,
to find the laws which govern them,

To ask the questions, and to wait
until the end, to hear the truth.

(Written Feb. 22, 2010)