Galactic Sunflower Poem by Harley White

It's said that nature prefers a spiral.
In world we know they've nearly gone viral,
found in phenomena great or small size
on earth, in the seas and celestial skies.

Crucifers, fingerprints have this motif,
forms phyllotactic on stems for the leaf,
hurricanes, DNA's spiraling strands,
nautilus shells fractalized in the sands.

Some patterns follow sequence condition
of Fibonacci, mathematician,
for instance, sunflower florets design
running clockwise and counter as they twine.

A flocculent spiral whose arms unfurl,
Galaxy Sunflower looks like a swirl
or the yellow blossom for which it's named,
sixty-three of Messier objects famed,

with high luminosity not star made
but maybe from black hole's unfathomed shade.
Momentum angular and rotation
both strong share also in its creation.

By Pierre Méchain initially eyed
as the first deep-sky object he had spied
in June of seventeen seventy-nine
and then with Messier's listings combined,

that grand cosmic grouping, celebrated
for fluffy appearance, is located
twenty-seven million light-years away,
with four hundred billion stars on display!

It's one hundred thirty thousand in span,
this galactic giant with floral plan,
roughly the range of our Milky abode
as shown in picture by Hubble bestowed.

Canes Venatici constellation,
in English, ‘Hunting Dogs' aggregation,
houses the Whirlpool along with this bloom,
adorned in pink dots of star baby boom,

plus blue spiral arms round an amber core,
and cosmic dust lanes stargazers explore.
Titled NGC five zero five five
as well, this lustrous domain seems to thrive.

A sunflower speaks to us of the light
that brightens our earthly voyage to night.
Vincent van Gogh painted many of them,
lying down, in vases, each work a gem.

His friend, Paul Gauguin, a portrait composed
of the painter and blossoms which disclosed
what he felt showed artist in his essence.
Yet how could one capture the quintessence

of Vincent's vast genius in hue and style,
whose masterpieces will ever beguile? !
A host of creators remained ignored
till all of a sudden they were adored

by future critics or lovers of art
with often dizzying changes of heart.
Such is the case with a talent unique
in poetry, song, aesthetic mystique.

William Blake, unrecognized in his day,
now is lauded, applauded, here to stay
with glorious verse and image blended
conveyed through powerful visions splendid.

In poem he penned apropos our theme,
the blossom longs for eternity's stream,
in lines, ‘Ah Sun-flower! weary of time'…
who's ‘seeking after that sweet golden clime',

perhaps symbolic of the constant Sun
or ‘where the traveler's journey is done'…
Whether we hold with this fanciful flight,
that galactic bloom's quite an awesome sight.

Yet wondrous for us is the ‘pale blue dot'
as Sagan called Earth, with unfinished plot
of the human story we are writing
on our home sweet home, still so inviting,

a ‘lonely speck in the great cosmic dark'
which has nurtured life from tiniest spark
into manifold beings to abound
in the skies, the oceans, and on the ground.

Here swan clouds sail the azure firmament
while measured sundial days impermanent
from dawn to dusk in kaleidoscope scene
segue to star-studded nocturnal screen.

If heaven there were in vastness of space
it might parallel the Goldilocks place
where mortals, with fortune they scarce descry,
live out their existence before they die.

On playing our parts and exiting stage,
will we discover another blank page
for ongoing destiny to be writ
in full-length drama or improvised skit?

Alexander Pope an idiom coined,
later by myriad authors purloined,
in heroic couplet by which he said,
that ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread'.

May quests in astronomy kindle flame
of appreciation in how we came
to be here, midst enormous stellar scheme,
igniting passion to wake from the dream,

so we'll turn our gaze to the inner realms
ere the path to extinction overwhelms
due to greed unrestrained and mindless pride,
which savvy alone cannot override, —

thus to find where true wisdom's waters flow
and embrace enlightenment's golden glow!