Cosmic Cat’s Gaze

by Harley White

Published: Saturday, September 28 2019 00:07

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The cats here on earth we’ve befriended
live round about us nearby.
Yet above, unblinkingly splendid,
is the nebula ‘Cat’s Eye’

which leaves stargazers a bit bemused,
as do felines kept as pets,
seen in pictures on the net perused
or tenderly told vignettes.

Domestic cats have night sight superb
and can focus bright light too,
with unruffled stance that might perturb
those who pass before their view. 

Oftentimes a cat will look askance,
not deigning to even mew,
or may give deserved approving glance.
Is that why they’re known as ‘true’?

Such seems the case with an eye in space,
called NGC sixty-five
forty-three, staring, devoid of face,
from star in its fatal drive.

Concentric rings in a bulls-eye form,
eleven or maybe more,
were deemed a variance from the norm,
since pulsations from the core

of mass ejections would all appear
fifteen hundred years apart,
each hoop, the edge of a bubble sphere,
in a pattern off the chart,

plus every tremor creating shell
of dust with its mass as big
as sum of planets on carousel
in our solar whirligig.

The constellation Draco is where
William Herschel saw a blob,
to him like a globe, in Dragon lair,
that blue-green thingamabob.

Back then, in seventeen eighty-six,
he gave it the faulty term
of planet, which still is in name mix,
making astronomers squirm,

although William Huggins later on,
who worked along with his wife,
while peering skyward hither and yon
at celestial heavens, rife

with gaseous splotches, recognized
through his spectroscopic lamp
that it could not be characterized
by a planetary stamp.

Due to semblance elliptical green
when by backyard watchers spied,
to ‘Cat’s Eye’ of mysterious mien
its title came to be tied.

The double bubble that overlaps
is a puzzling aspect still.
Are there more stars at the hub perhaps
which shrug off layers at will?

Whatever the cosmic thrusts at play
that lie in the gripping gaze,
this stellar system’s dying away
with quite a glorious blaze.

Some hedonists ‘carpe diem’ say
with no thought for tomorrow,
yet lack of foresight may heavy weigh
on future present sorrow.

So let that feline stare remind us
midst our mortal struts and frets
that headlong heedlessness could find us
with a fate of great regrets…

But I cannot end this ekphrastic
verse without praise for creatures
felt by many to be fantastic
in attributes and features

that can claim vast eye beyond the dome
of our welkin’s skyey blue,
or convert a house into a home,
as only a cat can do.

~ Harley White 

* * * * * * * * *

Some sources of poetic inspiration were the following…

Image and info ~ The Cat’s Eye Nebula…
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_211.html

Image and info ~ Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543)…
https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cat_s_Eye_Nebula_NGC_65432

The Cat’s Eye Nebula…
https://cosmicpursuits.com/2315/the-cats-eye-nebula/

Cat’s Eye Nebula ~ with video…
https://hubble25th.org/images/6

Various images and info ~ Cat’s Eye Nebula – NGC 6543…
https://www.constellation-guide.com/cats-eye-nebula-ngc-6543/

Image and info ~ The Cat’s Eye Nebula from Hubble…
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180610.html

Image explanation ~ The Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543), seen in detail by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen in space.

Credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)