Cosmic Skyscape Poem by Harley White

In my meanders high above
beyond the cries of mourning dove
on voyages a spaceship flies
where poets' reveries arise,

I happened on a cloudy scape,
phantasmagorical in shape,
framing vista topsy-turvy
mountainous with billows curvy,

sculpted from the dust and gases
that a nebula amasses
to craft a scene ethereal
through art of winds sidereal

together with radiation
of newborn stars' emanation
which these astral infants fashion
from the heat of birthing passion.

NGC 2174,
known as "Monkey Head" furthermore,
is where we find these summits tall
near its edge in a portion small.

Speaking in terms astronomic,
the emissions are ionic
to make this interstellar cast
which is being eroded fast

by an active astral cluster
exerting terrific bluster
in race to see which starry knots
can bear their babies as ‘begots'

before giant gusts have blown them
and utterly overthrown them.
When the view is rotated right
it possesses resemblance slight

to Hokusai's famed woodblock print
"The Great Wave", with historic hint
as to force of raging ocean
felt in Japan with emotion,

being a country surrounded
by the briny deep unbounded.
"La Mer" which Debussy composed
was influenced, it's been disclosed,

by that work— but I've been straying
from the image we're surveying.
Carved by ultraviolet light,
it glows against the vapors bright

of this silhouetted region,
factory for starry legion,
through dust creating astral peers
in the making millions of years.

Oddly all that enthusiasm
turns into devastating spasm,
a self-destructive spectacle,
as lesson dialectical.

The setting of this formation
is Orion constellation
on celestial equator found,
mythicized in his stomping ground

as an animal slayer fierce,
in legend killed by arrow's pierce,
or maybe by scorpion's sting
due to his boastful swaggering.

That hunter of the beasts unfurled
is seen in skies around the world.
Orion an asterism wears
in stellar belt— the cincture bears

a triad named for string of pearls
fit for aristocratic girls.
Lord Tennyson's "The Princess" verse
calls it, in unrhymed passage terse,

‘three stars of airy Giant's zone
that glitter burnished', as is shown,
‘by the frosty dark', poetic
in that author's tone aesthetic.

‘Twas hierarchical collapse
which limned the Monkey Head perhaps
as part of primate to appear
containing cloudscape in its sphere.

Some galaxies astoundingly,
to filters praise resoundingly,
are evident in the backdrop,
whose light the dust would largely stop.

Patterned with graceful arcing frills
structured into pillars and hills,
it's a place where dreams can wander
off to a faraway yonder…

Life goes by in wink of an eye.
How shall we pass the time that's nigh?
Might it matter more than is thought
in our future destiny wrought?

The mourning dove doth coo at morn
in plaintive call as day is born,
while skylarks warble ‘strains profuse'.
In Shelley's ode, the songs they loose

of ‘unpremeditated art'
pour forth as from a joyous heart,
with ‘notes that flow in crystal stream'
deemed deeper ‘than we mortals dream'—

tuneful troubadours, unbidden,
singing ‘like a poet hidden'
sweet refrains unmixed with sadness,
melodies that teach of gladness.

They trill in flight a wake-up call
with rain of harmony for all,
sounds of ever vernal showers
in idyllic sylvan bowers.

It's said familiarity
will breed contempt, a verity
apparent in world around us
from the troubles that confound us

here on planet of our abode
where life is but an episode
we seem intent on ending fast,
though so rare in the cosmos vast…

As humans look to heavens' vault
their earthly vision to exalt,
at wonderments that mystify
in masterpieces of the sky,

let's bring stargazing awe back home
where marvels lie neath azure dome,
in fresh appreciation hark
to effervescent song of lark,

and on the greatest quest embark
of seeking light within the dark
delusion dwelling in mankind
as well as true enlightened mind!