a photo of Mercury from MESSENGER, NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
a poem inspired by my view on the evening of June 15, 2018
with special thanks to my father who often paused to walk into the front yard and look up at the stars
and to a family friend who showed me the solar eclipse on Christmas Day, 2000 through a telescope
and to Gene Roddenberry
What Bright Spots
What bright spots accompany the moon tonight!
My awe like an ancient’s
but without terror:
The moon is just an eyelash.
Unfamiliar orbs, not joints
of creatures true or imagined,
compel me from sky to screen
to ask:
what bright spots accompany the moon tonight?
Ah, Venus,
another summer swathed in gossamer radiance:
sashay on.
Hello, Mercury!
You are not so small
as my middle school styrofoam model
or the textbook illustration from elementary school:
Whom else have I respected too little,
having never encountered their presence?
Krystal J. F. Grant
Ars Arvole 