I had deja vu watching this clip.

People sometimes give me grief for loving Johnny - he's so old, he's a drinker, all thetattoos, etc - but he is very talented, deep, and wise beyond his years (well...).

He's always learning from the people he encounters. He doesn't just meet someone or work with someone and move on. He learns from them, he takes their wisdom and lives with it.

He loves his family, more than anything. It's clear the way he talks about them, or doesn't talk about them, how much he loves, and respects, and wants to protect his family.

I love this man - not because he's beautiful on the outside (which he definitely is), but because he's beautiful on the inside.

The Stars Not Too Far Off

The following poems are from my collection, which I titled "The Stars Not Too Far Off," a quote from the preface of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I've written them for my astronomy class, and I'll print them and have them bound to hand in, and I'll probably keep a copy for myself as well, because I like them.

Stargazing

Lying on the cold concrete,

A flannel blanket folded beneath my head,

A thermos of hot coffee in my hands.

The darkness of the heavens stretch above me,

Dotted through with burning, white-hot stars,

Each the size of a pinprick.

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

When was the beginning of the universe,

and where will it end?

What is the destiny of mankind?

A flannel blanket folded beneath my head,

Lying on the cold concrete,

I contemplate my own insignificance.

TRITFID NEBULA

Not made for this world.

Brilliant, otherworldly shades of azure and magenta.

Swirling about in a rage of heat and pressure.

That beauty is not of this world,

It is too great, too terrible for humanity to behold.

Better to observe at a distance –

If viewed too closely,

Such terrible beauty could annihilate the human race.

Sunrise Photography

I’d forgotten how cold it is before sunrise.

Sitting here on this cold, hard, blue plastic slide,

Waiting for the sun to make its slow way over the horizon.

My camera is ready, my compass is set,

But still, everything is grey.

The frost sparkles on the grass.

I wait.

I watch.

The horizon becomes too bright to look at,

But still, everything is grey.

I keep waiting.

I keep watching.

A sliver of gold.

Warmth on my face.

Click.

Night At the Lab

Wait.

It’s real.

I always knew it was,

I’d read about it,

Seen photos of it,

Even seen video footage of it.

But until I looked through the telescope myself,

And saw it up there in the blackness,

Suspended in face with its four Gallilean moons,

Two red equatorial bands and all:

Jupiter.

Haiku Sequence on the Subject of Astronomy

Seeing the vastness –

We can’t be the only ones

In this universe.

Endless sky-darkness,

Eternal void overhead,

Gravity keeps me.

Lighting the darkness,

Billions of miles away,

Tiny burning suns.

In the endless night,

Streaks of light across the sky –

Meteor shower.

Pre-dawn, all is still,

The grass glittering with frost,

Steely grey-blue sky.

The sun is rising,

Flash of gold on the mountains –

Burning hydrogen.

Sun in the window,

Looking through a spectograph –

Rainbow on the wall.