Galactic Needle Poem by Harley White

Adrift in space where dreamers tread
a Needle's sewing cosmic thread
through cloths of heavens vastly spread
of gold and silver light o'erhead,

to draw from Irish poet Yeats
in cherished verse recited oft
of gorgeous vision he creates
wherein he pled for footsteps soft

upon his dreams laid underfoot,
he being poor with only those
embroidered fabrics there to put,
or so his wish celestial goes.

Blue hues as well in cloths around
the galaxy of thin design
as Needle tagged when it was found
are glimpsed in lumined stellar shine.

What do the experts have to share
about the slender rod physique
in Coma Berenices (Hair) ?
Is Needle Galaxy unique?

If eyed edge-on the Milky Way
might show a similarity
to spiral grouping's look, they say,
perceived in scenic clarity—

that stylus first recorded for
Sir William Herschel's star archive
with central bulge at inner core,
termed NGC Four Five Six Five.

Its narrow profile corresponds
to aspect of the seamster's tool
or fairytalers' magic wands
which sorceresses use to rule.

This spiral like our Milky one
has interstellar dusty lanes
perhaps with habitats homespun
where other musers weave terrains.

While background galaxies are spied
an ‘island universe' it seems
for poet's reveries to glide
amongst idyllic starlit beams.

Midst endlessness of inky space
the vista astrally atilt
where veiling trails of disk enlace
might summon up a lyric lilt

in tuneful verses lithely hewn
of luminaries on the rise
in distant firmaments o'erstrewn
through yet unconstellated skies…

Still, many million light-years far
our happenstance of death and birth
beneath a mortal lucky star
is here on evanescent earth.

Let Needle tailor hitherto
undreamed of dreams with lofty view
that humans may inspire anew
to grander purposes pursue.