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:
Orion captured through the slit of the Visuale telescope at Castel Gandolfo. Credit: Alfredo MatacottaThe 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.”
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.”
