Hen’s Wings
by Harley White
- Published: Tuesday, February 04 2020 21:19
A pair of blue wings is hovering
against the inky black covering
within ‘Little Fox’ constellation
of Vulpecula designation,
portrayed with stipple sidereal
in Hubble image ethereal,
‘Hen two dash four three seven’ labeled.
A hen with fox is Aesop fabled,
except it was really a crow
in that apologue still apropos
where pride overcame the bird’s good sense,
so fox got the food through the pretense
of disparaging its corvine caw;
thus the crow dropped the cheese from its jaw.
There are many stories much the same.
In Middle Ages the bird became
chanticleer; Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury
Tales’ has one that warns to be wary
of flattery false and specious praise,
since fox on inflated ego plays
with rooster to hear his special cry,
hence to distract and snatch him thereby.
Yet fox falls prey to his own conceit,
and chanticleer flees to tree retreat.
But coming back to high-flying hen
which Hubble’s scope brought within our ken,
this nebula with glowing surround
was by stargazer Minkowski found
then by Henize later catalogued
as nebula with the name befogged
in misleading term planetary,
for that title is quite contrary
to remnant of an imploded star,
which is indeed what those objects are.
As shown by the wings, it’s bipolar,
cast off from a star like ours solar
which nearing end of its astral span
swelled to red giant’s flash in the pan
then sent forth its layers into space,
as a white dwarf for core took its place…
And yet my inspiration’s essence
came from the alae’s luminescence
seen in this vast stelliferous sight
against the canvas of cosmic night.
Still, one might fancy those whizzing wings
borne by empyreal bird that sings
melodies wafted amidst the spheres
only a starry-eyed poet hears.
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * * *
Some sources of inspiration were the following…
‘Aesop’s Fables’ ~ ‘The Fox and the Crow’
http://classics.mit.edu/Aesop/fab.2.2.html
‘Chanticleer and the Fox’ ~ Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanticleer_and_the_Fox
‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’, from ‘The Canterbury Tales’, by Geoffrey Chaucer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nun%27s_Priest%27s_Tale
Image and info ~ Hubble Watches the Icy Blue Wings of Hen 2-437
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-watches-the-icy-blue-wings-of-hen-2-437
Image and info ~ The icy blue wings of Hen 2-437
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1606a/?utm_medium
Image and info ~ Hubble Sees Young Bipolar Planetary Nebula
http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-young-bipolar-planetary-nebula-03618.html
Image Wikipedia ~ The icy blue wings of Hen 2-437
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_icy_blue_wings_of_Hen_2-437.jpg
Image explanation ~ In this cosmic snapshot, the spectacularly symmetrical wings of Hen 2-437 show up in a magnificent icy blue hue. Hen 2-437 is a planetary nebula, one of around 3000 such objects known to reside within the Milky Way. This image of Hen 2-437 includes optical and infrared observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
Image credit: ESA (European Space Agency)/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
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