{"id":337,"date":"2004-09-24T09:51:00","date_gmt":"2004-09-24T16:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/planetarium\/"},"modified":"2004-09-24T09:51:00","modified_gmt":"2004-09-24T16:51:00","slug":"planetarium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/24\/planetarium\/","title":{"rendered":"Planetarium"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adrienne Rich<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Thinking of Caroline Herschel<\/a> (1750-1848), astronomer, sister of William; and others.<\/i><\/p>\n

A woman in the shape of a monster
\n
a monster in the shape of a woman
\n
the skies are full of them<\/p>\n

a woman \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘in the snow
\n
among the Clocks and instruments
\n
or measuring the ground with poles’<\/p>\n

in her 98 years to discover
\n
8 comets<\/p>\n

She whom the moon ruled
\n
like us
\n
levitating into the night sky
\n
riding the polished lenses<\/p>\n

Galaxies of women, there
\n
doing penance for impetuousness
\n
ribs chilled<\/p>\n

in those spaces \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of the mind<\/p>\n

An eye,
\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘virile, precise and absolutely certain’
\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 from the mad webs of Uranusborg
\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 encountering the NOVA<\/p>\n

every impulse of light exploding
\n
from the core
\n
as life flies out of us<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tycho whispering at last
\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Let me not seem to have lived in vain’<\/p>\n

What we see, we see
\n
and seeing is changing<\/p>\n

the light that shrivels a mountain
\n
and leaves a man alive<\/p>\n

Heartbeat of the pulsar
\n
heart sweating through my body<\/p>\n

The radio impulse
\n
pouring in from Taurus<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am bombarded yet \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I stand<\/p>\n

I have been standing all my life in the
\n
direct path of a battery of signals
\n
the most accurately transmitted most
\n
untranslatable language in the universe
\n
I am a galactic cloud so deep \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 so invo-
\n
luted that a light wave could take 15
\n
years to travel through me \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And has
\n
taken \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am an instrument in the shape
\n
of a woman trying to translate pulsations
\n
into images \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for the relief of the body
\n
and the reconstruction of the mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is fun, I may just turn this into a poetry blog.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adrienne Rich: Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), astronomer, sister of William; and others. A woman in the shape of a monster a monster in the shape of a woman the skies are full of them a woman \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘in the snow among the Clocks and instruments or measuring the ground with poles’ in her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellany"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}