For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (287): Inertia of Inertia (133)

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

Published: Wednesday, September 30 2020 19:56

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CENTRAL “SUNDIAL”
Astro-photo-poem (cosmopoem) by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

On July 27, 2020,
I walked on a central boulevard
and I saw an interesting cloud
that seemed like an imperfect map
of the European Union.

On September 1, 2020,
I returned to that zone,
this time to tell you about a monument
which shocked me in 7 steps a few years ago.

1. It’s great, the municipality made
a sundial with pillars as hours
on a major artery of Bucharest!
2. But… why in a place
shadowed by trees and blocks,
with so little sunlight?
3. OK, it seems to be a double number
of pillars (24, not 12!),
perhaps the municipality thought of
measuring the time every half hour.
4. Oh no, the hour pillars are not marked!
5. It’s unbelievable,
in fact there are more than 24 pillars,
this is an unforgivable mistake!
6. What? The gnomon is a flag!
7. My God, this is not a sundial,
this is a monument dedicated to the European Union
(27 states, a pillar for each country)!

In these conditions,
the “stars’ of the European Union
did not console me.

So nothing new under the Sun:
a remarkable monument
(for politicians)
or an unhappy astronomical plagiarism
(for sky lovers).