Boomerang Message Poem by Harley White

Nebular Boomerang, as you're so called,
you look like an hourglass-shaped bow tie,
since your nearly symmetric lobes are sprawled
to remind one more of a butterfly.

Unable to view you with clarity
when first with that nineteen-eighty scope observed,
it was thought that your bipolarity
suggested a boomerang pattern curved.

Then when the sighting was further researched,
with preciser lenses to magnify,
you gained the name Bow Tie, perkily perched
in Centaurus there in the southern sky.

When I first saw you through Hubble's sharp gaze,
with your image in rainbow-colored sheen
highlighted in stars, so as to amaze,
I was struck by the drama of the scene.

Then I found out serendipitously
something astounding my eyes couldn't see…

You are literally the coolest place
that is known to exist in outer space!

With gases gushing in powerful jets
and temperature which is just a tad
plus absolute naught, as cold as it gets,
you've made astro-watchers exclaim, egad!

Your intriguing structure holds mysteries
with still many secrets to be revealed
of star births and deaths and their histories…
Who knows what new knowledge you yet may yield?

That suggestive ‘Boomerang' tag has stuck;
and we could use some of your coolness here
where down on this earth we're running amuck
in our self-made global-warmed atmosphere…

Beautiful Boomerang, please won't you teach us
how to get onto a better track?
Through light-years of space, may the message reach us
that what we give out will come right back!