For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (227): Inertia of Inertia (73)

By Andrei Dorian Gheorghe (text), Dan Mitrut and Valentin Grigore

Published: Monday, August 31 2020 21:36

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HISTORICAL MOMENTS IN METEOR POETRY
Astro-photo-essay-poem (cosmopoem)

“A sky of stars below,
A sky of stars above,
He looked like an unbroken lightning
Wandering among them.”
-Mihai Eminescu (from “Luceafarul” - The Evening Star, Lucifer or Hyperion, 1883)- 

“Only up there a star
separates from her sky
with a golden tear.”
-Lucian Blaga (from “Pasii Profetului” - The Steps of the Prophet, 1921)-

I began this episode with two magnificent poetic quotes about meteors (in my English translation from Romanian), written by the Romanian national poet, Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889), and the greatest Romanian poet in the 20th century, Lucian Blaga (1895-1961).

In 1993 Valentin Grigore founded the national astronomy camp-event “Perseids” with the meteors in the centre of the concept.  This event had a “golden age” in the Voivodes Hill and Targoviste until 1999, and was enriched by a Cosmopoetry Festival (directed by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe) since 1996.  In this environment, Dan Mitrut launched his first hit of astro-folk music, “Rain of Stars”, in 1997.

Here is a recent adaptation of that creation as for an astro-photo-poem (cosmopoem) - a bow over time including an excerpt of the song lyrics combined with a photo made by the same singer-songwriter at SARM’s Perseid event 2020 in Runcu Stone:

RAIN OF STARS
Lyrics (SARM’s Perseid event 1997) and photo (SARM’s Perseid event 2020) by Dan Mitrut-

It’s raining stars over the blind Earth. 
It’s raining stars soaked in milk.
Chains of night
Rattle in the sky.

Between 2002 and 2008, Andrei Dorian Gheorghe, Valentin Grigore and Alastair McBeath (UK) coordinated Meteor Contemporary Poetry Project, a succession of international anthologies for the electronic archive of the International Meteor Organization.

In 2020, during the 28th edition of SARM’s Perseid event, Andrei Dorian Gheorghe (in Bucharest) and Valentin Grigore (in Runcu Stone) cooperated for another special meteor photo-poetry work.

HUNTING SUMMER METEORS DURING THE PANDEMIC
-Poem by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe and photo by Valentin Grigore-

A Delta Aquariid fireball 
As a salutary, brilliant try
Showing that every moment is a gift
That can make the difference in the sky.