HEART OF THE GALAXY

by Alejandro Escudé

The mystery at the heart of the Milky Way has finally been solved. This morning, at simultaneous press conferences around the world, the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) revealed the first image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It’s not the first picture of a black hole this collaboration has given us—that was the iconic image of M87*, which they revealed on April 10, 2019. But it’s the one they wanted most. Sagittarius A* is our own private supermassive black hole, the still point around which our galaxy revolves. —Scientific American, May 12, 2022.

It’s an engine, 

the scientists say,

a black Mustang

parked at the curb

in front of our house,

the Milky Way,

I’ve been there, 

lightless, eating up stars,

surrounded by fire

that cannot reach me,

speed of light,

the scientists say,

why the image is blurry

yet crisp

as can be,

such are the rules

we live by, the movie

inside the maelstrom,

the Papi

and the Mami,

a solitary mitt laying 

centerfield, a baseball 

tucked inside 

twirling 

as the cradle

of life in the universe spins 

26,000 light years away,

humans beings, Lucy

to the aliens, biological

Big Bang, Adam

and Eve to the bug-eyed

Greys

and the lizard man

who staggers out of an oval door

of a saucer-metallic

flying saucer,

time falling into time,

a spot on a boy’s foot,

beach tar, sound of waves,

salty air.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

ALL PRAISE TO VACCINE SCIENTISTS

by Earl J. Wilcox

Özlem Türeci, left, and Uğur Şahin of BioNTech. Backed by Pfizer, their vaccine is 90% effective in stopping people from falling ill. Photograph: Wolfgang Eilmes/FAZ Foto via The Guardian, December 6, 2020.

Metaphors pile up to describe

our anticipation as we await

the first doses, await the vaccines’

power to save us. Doubtless we

elderly will not live long enough

to know the whole story of how

and who and where the scientists

worked and worked to develop

the long-awaited medicine.

Alert! Octogenarians! Give up

today’s nap, rise in praise of vaccine saviors.

 

Earl Wilcox in his late 80s awaits the vaccine in South Carolina.

MISSION

by Wendy Hoffman

Credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times, May 29, 2020.

The moon lifts its holy head like a sanctified queen.
Humans should not be there or leave bent over, backwards, reverent.
But competitive men are curious which they believe gives them the right.
This country, which turned away victims but
invited defeated Nazi scientists,
rips the untouchable veil from the bottom up
and ejects transparent astronauts,
stooges, sacrificed heroes.
A large striped boot print tattoos crevasses, crevices,
craters.

When I was four playing outside, a neighborhood boy twice my age or more

wanted to see me down there. He pointed his skinny finger. I squeezed my thighs

together but already trained never to say no, I watched my cotton undies fall to

my turned in ankles. The curious boy who rode his bicycle through hilly blocks

pretended to be a scientist. He inspected and had a good look.

They have a good photographic look while jobless people
on earth look up and remain hungry.
I watch rockets on TV,
hide my reddened face from our irreverence.


Wendy Hoffman had amnesia for most of her life. When she regained memory late in life, she wrote books about what she had forgotten. Karnac Books, London, published two of her memoirs in 2014 and 2015, as well as her first book of poetry in 2016. She co-authored a book of essays in 2018 for Routledge. Her third memoir is forthcoming from Aeon Books. Hoffman has a MFA and lives on the Olympic Peninsula with her little dog.

A MESSAGE FROM THE SECOND PLANET

by Martin Elster

A composite image of the planet Venus as seen by the Japanese probe Akatsuki. The clouds of Venus could have environmental conditions conducive to microbial life. IMAGE FROM THE AKATSUKI ORBITER, BUILT BY INSTITUTE OF SPACE AND ASTRONAUTICAL SCIENCE/JAPAN AEROSPACE EXPLORATION AGENCY via University of Wisconsin-Madison News, March 30, 2018.

On Friday, astronomers announced a new paper laying out the case for the atmosphere of Venus as a possible niche for extraterrestrial microbial life.—EarthSky, March 31, 2018


We’re microbes in the clouds of Venus
of an otherworldly genus
gobbling CO2 and spitting
out sulfuric acid—fitting
for a life form that can waft
akin to an ocean-going craft
far above the rocks and soil
whose heat will make lead bullets boil.

We’re vitamin D3 gourmets,
drinking ultraviolet rays
as we have done for donkey’s years,
wild about the atmosphere’s
asphyxiating greenhouse gas,
so reflective that your glass
sees only jewel-like radiance.
You scientists are on the fence

on whether there is life on Venus,
but only cause you haven’t seen us
yet. And we don’t want you to,
for if you poke and probe, you’ll strew
our virgin world with noxious matter.
All tranquility will shatter.
Goggle at our planet. Stand
in distant awe. But please don’t land!

Martin Elster is a composer and serves as percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His poetry has appeared in Astropoetica, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Chimaera, and The Road Not Taken, among others, and in anthologies such as Taking Turns: Sonnets from Eratosphere, The 2012 and 2015 Rhysling Anthologies, New Sun Rising: Stories for Japan, and Poems for a Liminal Age.

WE DID ALL WE COULD

by Carolyn Martin

"World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice" by William J. Ropple et al and 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries  in BioScience, 13 November 2017 via the Alliance of World Scientists.

We did all we could.
This came later—
after miscues, closed eyes,
full-throated ignorance
singing through church pews,
school rooms,
chamber halls,                                            
families at supper time.

We did all we could.
This came later—
after sold-out masks,
cracked water lines,
the silence of bees,
monkeys, elephants,
eucalyptus, maples,
and nature poetry.

We did all we could.
Someone would
have scoffed
at this arrogance
if there were, that is,
someone left to hear
and later hadn’t disappeared.

Carolyn Martin is blissfully retired in Clackamas, OR, where she gardens, writes, and plays. Her poems have appeared in publications throughout North America and the UK, and her third poetry collection Thin Places was released by Kelsay Books in 2017. She hopes the Earth won't go extinct before her next book is published.