Still Life: Woman and Blue Marble

I came across this photo posted by Douglas Wheelock, one of the NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station. He took this of a crew member,  Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, who returned to Earth after six months in space in September, 2010.

Image: Astro_Wheels via twitpic

Still Life: Woman and Blue Marble
by Gideon Burton

She'd walked in space, an engineer, afloat
above the metal pods and trusses, far
above the humid atmosphere, thin moat
of air dividing most of us from stars.
How easy to recede into the black,
that deep-dark silent cold beyond outside
where gamma rays and meteors attack,
and yet, like gods, the astro-sailors glide.
As though upon a river bank she lay,
unhurried by the passing of the day,
content to hear what stream or sky might say,
she followed drifting clouds where they might stray.
     Be still as she, absorb the poetry;
     and with her walk in space and sky and sea.

Orbiting

Orbiting
by Gideon Burton

This wobbling mass, the wandering way of it,
the spinning, whirling on this windy wet
and island place, this globe, this fleck of spit,
perfecting what the vacuum can't perfect,
revolving through the comets' arcing lanes.
The Local Group, the spread of sputtering lights
too distant, quiet to collect remains
of errant gases, rocks. These are the rites
effected, bead thumbed after bead, the chant
of rhythms muter than the oldest span
of cooling lava underneath the land
oblivioned beyond our woman-man.
The ration carved, remainders multiply;
a future past our waking, though we try.

Photo: flickr - Brian Finifter

Asteroid Peach

Asteroid Peach
by Gideon Burton

A peach is like an asteroid except not hard,
much smaller, rarely tumbling off in space,
quite softer, really, fewer nickel shards
throughout, and smoother, kinder on its face.
A poor comparison? Digest it further:
once all the orange sugar globe is eaten,
a pit remains -- a horrid thing, like murder,
distorted, scarred, as though too often beaten.
Of course, when tonguing peach flesh on parfaits,
aglow with fruity perfume sweet to taste,
we act as though all peaches come our way
without that gnarled nut, that pitty waste.
     Both peach and planetoid have darkened cores
     that cling and cut: sharp pods of alien spores. 

Photo: flickr - verysubmm

Escape

ESCAPE
by Gideon Burton 

Forget the atmosphere, it is a skin

Of moistened molecules, a slab of heat

And dirt that hems you in, that slowly pins

You to the muddy surface where you eat

The wan pollutions and the heavy breeze

Of broad decay across the tribe of breath

Who chomp and puke and ever cough and wheeze

Until they cloud their time with signs of death.

Remember just the cleanliness of space,

Beyond that sticky sphere of sweat and gloom,

Where nothing heaves its germs into your face

And all will find such distance, blessed room.

       Escape the bounds delimiting your role.

       Into the vacuum launch your tired soul

Photo: flickr - colinjcampbell

The Plow of Time

The Plow of Time
by Gideon Burton

The plow of time, a cosmic blade that scores
the paths of Jupiters and wobbling moons,
that trenches passive galaxies, that bores
its twilight augurs into day's cocoon.
The scalpel time, irreverent and crude,
repulsing pulses, bleeding rhythms pale
and panting, corpses stiffening and mute,
the oxygen of oxygen grown stale.
The sickle seconds subdividing breath,
pretending order, overturning light
or black or shivering silence blue with death,
with thatched and snapping neurons, darkly bright.
    You bend or measure, clocking endless noon,
    too late, too thin to rhyme with now or soon.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - Lynn