Fan Mail Poetry

I get fan mail now and then; but this one included a poem, which I thought I would share, just for the fun of it!

Dr. Will Buckingham is a reader in Writing and Creativity at De Montfort University, in Leicester, England, adjacent to the River Soar. He’s the author of a number of books, both academic and fiction, including children’s books.

He included this note: “I was rummaging through some old boxes prior to moving house, and I stumbled across a bunch of notebooks from something like ten years back. Leafing through, I found a short poem that I’d written having seen you talk at the science museum in Birmingham. A few days after the talk, if I remember rightly, I was teaching a writing class, and I was encouraging my students to write sonnets, so I weighed in and produced the attached poem. The title is ‘The Pope’s Astronomer’’. I’m more of a fiction/philosophy writer than a poet, but it was fun to write.”

With his permission, here’s the sonnet:

The Pope’s Astonomer

The Pope’s astronomer climbs up the stair,
  of the observatory upon the hill
  above the Vatican; he says, “It’s fair
and warm tonight. The clouds are gone. I will

align my telescope with distant stars
  and contemplate the greatness of the One
who forged this curious universe of ours,
  that vast abyss of emptiness, these suns!”

“Of course,” — he checks himself — “it’s hardly proof
  of Christian faith. Saint Anselm put it best:
from faith comes understanding of the truth
  and not vice versa. Thus I must confess:

these endless nights spend gazing at the sky
  might tell us how, but may not tell us why.”