for 25. 12. 2023
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They are out there and high up a long way from the electricity grid, the inspirations for the artificial indoor lights of this season. They are there just as art is — for art’s sake, and no reason we can discern by reasoning. The man-made tributes to them, no matter how ingenious and beautiful, look pointless when considered beside the originals — which can seem to demand that you acknowledge them, as Jupiter beaming into a kitchen window did in 2022 when it came closer to earth than it had for fifty-nine years and dwarfed the rest of the constellation ( top ). It was an irresistible presence in the night sky for months. Vital indoor tasks were dropped to make records of its nearness, and these went directly into a file of personal astronomical treasures which also contains a haiku-like poem for the eyes from earlier this year: a half-moon in a cloudless blue yonder ( scroll all the way down past the moon shining on ponderosa branches ).
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If only Robert Frost were alive to ask why he singled out China for special mention in setting down a universal truism. (Was it a reference to Chinese philosophy?) In all other ways this poem below, better-suited to a snowless, warm, El Niño Christmas than any carol, is perfect. It is transcendent in spite of its author’s famous insistence on plainer, conversational versifying and in a different poem, preference for terra firma — ‘Earth’s the right place for love/ I don’t know where it is likely to go better.’
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On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations
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You’ll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves —
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drought will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn’t reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night.
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HAPPY CHRISTMAS
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post-Gutenberg 