Celestial Cherry Blossoms Poem by Harley White

The poet Basho, whose name is acclaimed
worldwide for haiku esteemed,
wrote myriad works for their greatness famed
and frequently nature themed.

Japan in the sixteen hundreds was where
his lyric verses were penned
mid trips solitary in open air
which continued till his end.

An evocative poem he composed
has a ‘cherry blossoms cloud'
and ‘gleam in the treetops of blooms' disclosed,
by ‘a moonlit night' endowed.

Such vivid pictures can senses transfix
through images that arise,
just as with NGC One One Five Six
espied in celestial skies.

This galaxy looks much like a cherry
tree its blossoms showering,
but with stellar newborns making merry
in the bliss of flowering.

Sprightly light from the starlets outward flows
meeting with hydrogen gas,
which causes those colorful pinkish glows
through its interactive pass.

Based in Aries, the Ram, Constellation,
this galaxy dwarf loner
has avoided a merger formation
with any neighbor donor.

Still, its rotational strangeness and shape
suggest that in times of yore
perhaps a close brush or narrow escape
left its chaos from before.

Thus astronomers find it appealing
as galaxy to study
for the oddness this dwarf is revealing
among its bright blooms ruddy.

Exposures separate render each hue
from varied wavelengths assigned
to the captures portrayed through filters two
in the Hubble view combined.

This posy grouping with nurseries star
of many an astral birth
is some twenty-five million light-years far
away from the Planet Earth.

Yet here is where true cherry blossoms grow
their fleeting beauty admired
in delicate dance of seasonal show,
which cosmic captions inspired.

And when my creative muses are stirred
like petals seized by a breeze,
I must follow the inner call that's heard
wherever its path may please.

To Basho paraphrase as at the start
from a passage he professed:
‘Ere the light things give off dies in the heart,
it needs to be first expressed.'