The Raven's Eye

Norma Russell Sheff Posted this to my FaceBook page, but I just had to post it here. Some of the best inspration comes from our friends.

Thank You Norma!

Many Blessings to you,
Christina


This is in the Unitarian Church in Las Cruces, NM. It's Clyde Tombaugh polishing a telescope mirror. This is only one portion of a whole wall. There is a raven behind him.

EARTHSHINE

Today I see Clyde Tombaugh polishing a telescope mirror, his image caught forever, almost, in the stained glass window of the Unitarian church.

He will polish it, polish it fine, until the stained glass is gone,
the mauve jewelers’ rouge running off the squat glass cylinder in a ferric oxide flood. Pluto exists.

Clyde’s eyes, unnaturally clear and blue, meet my gaze
over his sinewed hands, as planets circle
and galaxies beckon,
and I remember earthshine.

Just when night is darkest on the mountain trail,
seven humans straggle back to camp
from the waterfall, without a light, convinced
we cannot navigate like the silent owls,
nor like lions, with their shining eyes;
that as creation’s least-natural foster children, we are here
less competent than the nimble-fingered tarsier;
only human, dispossessed, and far from at home
in the world of night.

It’s night! we say, No moon!
There’s nothing out there! Only stars!!

Slowly, we realize that we have begun to see;
a subtle glow emanates from an unknown source
… the sky? We can discern trees, the path,
an occasional patch of phosphorescence,
rocks, a dim horizon, on this dark side
of our world.

Too long we have bent our heads and shielded our gaze
before the gods of the city lights, thinking them real;
to remember that we should name, or even see,
planets, galaxies, great individual stars.
Our sight is dulled by angled things.

The truth is:

The earth shines beneath our feet.

Whose telescope now watches this unexplored world,
and sees us choosing to stumble, blind,
surrounded by light?

Norma Russell Sheff