Planetarium

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750-1848),

astronomer, sister of William; and others.

A woman in the shape of a monster

a monster in the shape of a woman

the skies are full of them

a woman ‘in the snow

among the Clocks and instruments

or measuring the ground with poles’

in her 98 years to discover

8 comets

She whom the moon ruled

like us

levitating into the night sky

riding the polished lenses

Galaxies of women, there

doing penance for impetuousness

ribs chilled

in those spaces of the mind

An eye,

‘virile, precise and absolutely certain’

from the mad webs of Uranusborg

encountering the NOVA

every impulse of light exploding

from the core

as life flies out of us

Tycho whispering at last

‘Let me not seem to have lived in vain’

What we see, we see

and seeing is changing

the light that shrivels a mountain

and leaves a man alive

Heartbeat of the pulsar

heart sweating through my body

The radio impulse

pouring in from Taurus

I am bombarded yet I stand

I have been standing all my life in the

direct path of a battery of signals

the most accurately transmitted most

untranslatable language in the universe

I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo-

luted that a light wave could take 15

years to travel through me And has

taken I am an instrument in the shape

of a woman trying to translate pulsations

into images for the relief of the body

and the reconstruction of the mind.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

External links

Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus

Talking Writing Monster’s Page –

Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh

Poems in English 

• The Seven Sisters by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Sailor’s Mother by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Russian Fugitive by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Reverie of Poor Susan by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Redbreast Chasing The Butterfly by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Prioress’s Tale [from Chaucer] by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Primrose of the Rock by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Power of Armies is a Visible Thing by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Pet-Lamb by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Passing of the Elder Bards by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Old Cumberland Beggar by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Oak Of Guernica Supposed Address To The Same by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Morning Of The Day Appointed For A General Thanksgiving. January 18, 1816 by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The King Of Sweden by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Idle Shepherd Boys by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Horn Of Egremont Castle by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Highland Broach by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Happy Warrior by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Green Linnet by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Germans On The Heighs Of Hochheim by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

Doska or the Board – write anything

Search engines:

Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)

Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.

Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees

Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works