…when it shimmers

[I should come up with something cool to put here]

It’s been almost a week since I was last here and I still haven’t thought of a new idea for my second post. So, being the environment lover that I am, I’ll just recycle my old post (format-wise). Here we go.

There once was a child. ‘Twas a young lad. Now, this lad was a peculiar one. He was curious of just about everything around him. Day in and day out, he wondered at the strength of an ant which carried food twice the size of its entire body; he wondered at the unusual needle-like leaves and the bizarre cones of gigantic pines; he wondered at the vast expanse of great, blue oceans. Yes, he could be easily amazed with even the simplest of things. But what really made him wonder or, what he liked to wonder upon the most were the bright, shimmering stars of the night sky.

It is quite obvious how I’m playing here. But, just to make sure we’re on the same page, let me elaborate. If you remember my previous post, I was talking about the night and the moon. So, obviously, the next post would be about the stars. Funny, right? So, if it wasn’t obvious then, it is now. I like being obvious. Surprises are there to make our lives a bit more fun. Uncertainty naturally makes people either anxious or excited. Surprises aim for excitement. If it does the opposite, then, surprises are not your thing. Anyway, as I was saying, I like the obvious (most of the time) simply because it destroys the illusion that everything in life needs to be a surprise. Let me elaborate. Society is constantly expecting us to be unpredictable. This means that we are forced to do things leaps and bounds more than what is expected from us. That for me sounds like a lot of work so I stay obvious to make life easier. Not actually magis, but that’s just me.

By the way, did I forget to mention that the kid I mentioned above was me? Well, surprise! I was, and still am, a curious fellow. The most ordinary things I come across day by day could easily astonish me. That’s why I love the sciences so much. There is a beautiful explanation on how the universe and just about everything in it works. When I was about 7 years old, I had a particular liking for astronomy. Note that I was still 7 so I had no idea what dark energy, event horizons and special relativity were. So, being a kid and all, I was only interested in the colorful images of star clusters, galaxies and planets taken by telescopes. They just looked so cool! They still do now, but being “older” I appreciate astronomy for the science behind it and not for its coolness factor. I’m still constantly awed by it like how the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating which probably means that eventually we won’t be able to see any stars in the sky anymore (surprise!). Still, there’s just something about seeing the world (I mean the universe) through the eyes of a child (*sigh). I should really shorten these posts.

Let me just get to the poem. This is the third definition in the list where a piece of writing is poetic when it shimmers. So, without further delay, I present to you “The Starlight Night” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. One important thing you should know about Hopkins is that he is actually a Jesuit (surprise!). Jesuits are not only renowned for their works in science but also in literature, you know (I didn’t). Anyway, this makes the poem, and most of Hopkins’s (S.J.) works heavily influenced by his faith. This gives his poems a depth and creates a sort of religious feeling (definition 21 :))that can only be brought by faith as illustrated by the poem:

The Starlight Night

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.

Buy then! bid then! — What? — Prayer, patience, alms, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877

[Got that here; also found this short story by one of my favorite storytellers when I was looking for a poem, read at your will]

I chose this poem because the first thing that came to mind when I see or hear the word shimmer was the stars. Nothing, at least for me, shimmers more than a giant ball of gas in outer space from the viewpoint of earth. See for yourself:

What I’d do to see a sky like that

[I got that photo by Coolbiere. A. here (Abduzeedo is an excellent design blog, but I’ll just save that for another post).]

What you see here is called a “dark sky” in Nepal, probably a valley in the himalayas. Dark sky is the term given to places with close to zero light pollution. This means that the milky way and the hundreds of stars in it can be seen by just looking up. Deserts are a good place to see this phenomenon. Also, there are reserves and parks that try to preserve the beauty of the starlight night. Sadly, light pollution is getting worse and making dark sky locations extremely rare. So, if you want to support the fight against light pollution, learn more about dark skies here.

Before I end this ridiculously long post, I’d like to share another piece of classical music (that I hope you don’t mind). For this one, Franz Liszt would be a good pair for the poem. Now, Liszt was a Hungarian composer during the Romantic period (around the same time as Hopkins). He is known for his virtuosity and technically demanding compositions. His Trois études de concert are a set of piano études that are known today as stand-alone pieces. The third étude is in D-flat major and commonly referred to as “Un Sospiro” (Itallian for “A Sigh”; nickname wasn’t given by Liszt) is a very complex study that demands alternate, crossing hands and has an extra staff that holds the melody of the piece. Here is Lang lang with his interpretation of the piece. Enjoy. And to say farewell, I say… farewell.

Thank you for being here and, please, do come again.

~C

For Curiosity.