For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (136): Inertia (9)

By Andrei Dorian Gheorghe (text and photos) and Florin Alexandru Stancu (design)

Published: Tuesday, June 30 2020 17:04

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ASTRONOMICAL SPIRES
Astro-photo-poem (cosmopoem) by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

The spire of a church
can show an imaginary closed sky,
while the cupola of an observatory
can show a real open sky,
both of them being ways
to the Creator’s heart.

May 31, 2020, Bucharest.
Pushed by an irresistible impulse,
I did my first photographic tour
in the central city
after the “pandemic relaxation”
trying to catch the Noon Sun
over three major spires:
Antim’s Church
(the cultural centre
of the Eastern Christian world
around the 1710s,
which printed books for all Orthodox countries),
Spyridon’s New Church
(the largest in Bucharest for the last 150 years)
and the Patriarchy Church
(where the Romanians decided their
unions and state independence).

On that day I had the vision of a future
in which the spires of the churches
can be opened
for views through the telescope
and decorated
with portraits of famous astronomers
as saints of humanity.