Cry out your name to the wind, As it gathers and flies, Let it carry your name on its wing To the edge of the skies. Cry out your name to the wind, And the wind replies – “I am Aneurin, I am Belinda, The unseen and wise. Now I am Cormac, blowing, blowing, Davina rising, Ezra free – Soon to be Fortune, waiting, growing – Filling the sails at mill and sea. I am the storm and the maelstrom twinned, The harbinger-bringer, the hurricane eyes !” So cry out your name to the wind, And your name shall rise.
Ashes to ashes And ashes to beeches, Ashes wherever The passing breeze reaches, To scatter and nourish The bluebells and oaks, Whose branches are neighbours And flowers are folks.
Ashes have grown And ashes have fallen, But not before raising Their saplings from pollen – We sleep with the ivy And grow with the lime, Whose roots are in mem’ry, And crowns are in time.
The trouble with revolutions is They never stop revolving, And neither do the topsy-turvy Problems that need solving. The old guard that we overcame Are coming-up behind, While those on top are sliding-back – And so the wheel must grind.
And yet…does history repeat, Or echo with a twist ? Have we not changed since last we spun, Last fed the mill with grist ? If we are on an endless loop, What chance have we to learn ? Let’s hope we’re on a helix, then, Advancing as we turn.
February – season of mists And sniffles and sneezes and snorts. The lurgy is lurking, the palsy persists, That there’s no patent tonic or tincture can thwart. My fluid-filled senses are under attack so, And nothing can soothe me from Pfizer or Glaxo. Instead I must mop them with Cussons and Lever – The sweats and the shakes and the chills and the fever.
Is it just because my hands are swollen That my nat’ral poise is stolen ? Clumsy fingers uncontrolling, Rolling like they’re locked in boxing gloves. Is it just the syrup that I’m spooning That sets my giddy head to swooning ? Drifting in-and-out of tuning, Mooning like I’m some young thing in love. Either way, the outlook’s flaky – Something’s come and left me shaky. How am I to stem this phlegm cocooning me, That’s strewn in tubes below and pipes above ?
Unless… Unless it is you who is making me bluesy, Unless it is you who is laying me low, Weary and woozy and bleary and boozy I hate to be choosy, but say it ain’t so ! A cold front is passing, a hard sleet is falling – I hope they blow over once spring comes a-calling… Yet if I’m infected by what I suspect – Then there’s no cure can save me, and no ward protect.
Is it just because my eyes are streaming That the world looks like I’m dreaming ? Hazy psychedelic gleaming, Seeming strangely vivid yet unreal. Or is it my subconscious that I’m spying ? All the drugs my brain’s supplying Must have set my nerves to frying, Flying-off, and sleeping at the wheel. Either way, the outlook’s gloomy – Something’s come and left me rheumy. How can I accept your love undyingly, When dying is precisely how I feel ?
Looking up on these dark clear nights Gets me thinking – Are these stars ever-burning lights ? I doubt it – some are already blinking – Variables, never the same through the year, Though the diff’rence is pretty small beer.
And the way the heavens have always wheeled, The polar axis shifting round, Till some low stars will be concealed, Below the horizon, gone to ground. Others are still up there, still shine, But the pyramids no longer align.
And of course, they’re all in orbit through the galaxy, Just like the Sun, Drifting in the gravity waves of the sea, Closer and further as round they run Changing the brightness that each appears, Over the hundreds of thousands of years.
On even longer timeframes are the giants, Stars which simply swell and swell, And brighten as they do, in strict compliance With their enlarged shell. And after that, they slowly fade from view – At least, without a lens or two.
And then there’s the stars that go boom – The supernovas, blazes of glory, The superstars that meet their doom In one almighty furore. But how many of these tonight Will ever get to burn so bright ?
Well, first of all, forget the Type 1a’s, We’ll never see them coming – But the Type 2s, before they end their days, They warn us first by humming – Blowing off mass in dimming clouds Whose nebulas we see as shrouds.
And we know they must be massive beasts To begin with, these monster stars But weighing one is a movable feast With ridiculous error bars. But we reckon they need eight Sun’s-worth of matter – Though birth-weight or death-weight ? Surely the latter …?
Yet finding a list of stars by mass is illusive, Given their many uncertainties – Perhaps their spectrums will prove more conclusive In trying to determine these – We know all O’s and B’s 1-to-4 Are massive enough to fatally roar.
Well, technic’ly the white dwarfs can be As super-hot and white, But all such dwarfs are too dim to see On even the clearest night – Take Sirius B – closer and larger than average dwarfs, Yet still into the black of the sky he morphs.
But what about the other extreme, The supergiants, too big to fade ? The I’s, and maybe some II’s, by the Yerkes scheme, Ought to make the grade. But what percentage of all these stars comply ? Who knows ?, but I doubt it’s very high
Still, however scant are these, There’s some already shining bright – Like Spica, Deneb and Antares, Quite oblivious to their plight. And Betelgeuse and Rigel bold – Indeed, half of Orion, all told.
The sky is a restless place, Forever shifting its paradigm, It’s just that the eyes of the human race Are merely a blink in time. So if you ask me why I stare up ev’ry night, It’s just to check the stars are all alright.
When I mentioned that ‘half of Orion, all told’ will go boom, I hadn’t appreciated that of the eight bright stars that form his torso, all bar Bellatrix will go boom. But there are plenty of dim background stars within his borders, so it still counts.
I asked Chat GPT what percentage of stars in the Milky Way will end up as Type 2s, (between 8-25 sun masses), and it thought 0.1-0.5%, or 1-5 per thousand. But when I asked what percentage of naked-eye stars, it thought 5-10%, based on their having O- and B-type spectrums.Of course, there’s a strong chance that it’s just pulling these numbers out of its black hole…
Look up naked-eyed on a pitch and inky night, And what do we see ? We see youth. From the barely-there shrug to the brilliant-bright, It’s winners that we see, to tell the truth. Big stars, hot stars, Mutant-freaks-the-lot stars, From one end of the bell-curve – All Ohs and Bees and Ays. The only reds are giant reds, The newly-borns yet soon-be-deads – They’re burning-up for all they’re worth In one almighty blaze. And quite a few of them will blow In supernovas (what a show !) Within the next-odd million years or so.
The faintest stars are faint Because they’re small. But sometimes they are faint Because they’re far – In fact, they’re greater than them all – Their neighbours whom I never see – Only brightest faintest-stars Can reach to me.
Have you ever looked up at all those stars – Looked up at them all And felt so small ? No, nor have I.
Some say it makes them terrified, That endless sky. But why ? I couldn’t fear it if I tried.
I mean, I’ve always known I’m insignificant To ev’ry passing tree and ant. So what ? I happy with my lot.
I guess there’s some who think “Oh wow ! All this for me ? I am the lord of all I see ! But then again I always knew – The universe exists Because I do !”
But most of us look up and think: “Oh wow, the sky is beautiful tonight – But so are you, And so am I, And so is ev’rything in sight !”
And if we should look up and feel A little less – No need to stress, No need to pray. Just tell ourselves we’re just as real, And just as dear – And sure, those stars are very far away, But we’re right here !
We never can quite get our heads around How distant they all are – Yet maybe we can get a little closer When we get away so far – Beyond the streetlit towns, Beyond the constant headlit cars, To where the sky is bigger, So much bigger – So much so, it jars.
I guess we need a bit of both: A bit of awe, a bit of boast, To really make the most Of all those stars.
Lazy, far too lazy, far too idle, Don’t ask me. Far too needful of relaxing, Far too dodgeful of all taxing Action that disrupts my lethargy. I don’t run when I can sidle, I make sloths look suicidal, Vegetate with pride – So don’t ask me.
Rhyming Couplets 