Rae of sight

She was the one who spotted

a fawn in the thicket.

She felt watched and sought the source.

Her eyes pulled up to the top cap of a cement post

where a cat has perched his torso behind a trees' trunk,

she catches a green flash and but holds it like a butterfly.

She did not smell the smoke since she was not there,

she pointed out the scorched earth,

noting the stain of fire.

The marine layers danced in choral lines

without fear of heights,

her sights set upon cirrus clouds,

she traces her lips over the shape of words

forming patches on her salted skin,

she is alone in wondering

how to move the world

without making a sound.


Painting by Franz Marc, 'Deer in aMonasteryy Garden' (1912) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Meet Me (half ray)

De re,

My alias is my radius.
Since we were never given a choice
and were named
thus before we could voice
our pick or preference
to see it if sticks and since
most of us think our given name
carries a ring of lame-
ness
Unless
already entitled to impress,
like Princess Di
why
I'd like to say
I think my name should have regally been
Rey-
I'd sing it all day
and sometimes I would spell it Ray
and other days I'd write it Rae
for a boy or girl, either way,
like a vector connector
a reflector, or deflector
of either
Rae.
I think
I'm a pink
beaming scumble
tumbling toward
another's fame
via
various name games
that all sound the same.
A nom de plume,
a ready-made costume,
whose narrow lines
were all mine,
just a sign
to say
I am Rey
just for today.




Image By NASA, DOE, International Fermi LAT Collaboration [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Description details:Exploring the cosmos at extreme energies, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbits planet Earth every 95 minutes. By design, it rocks to the north and then to the south on alternate orbits in order to survey the sky with its Large Area Telescope (LAT). The spacecraft also rolls so that solar panels are kept pointed at the Sun for power, and the axis of its orbit precesses like a top, making a complete rotation once every 54 days. As a result of these multiple cycles the paths of gamma-ray sources trace out complex patterns from the spacecraft's perspective, like this mesmerizing plot of the path of the Vela Pulsar. Centered on the LAT instrument's field of view, the plot spans 180 degrees and follows Vela's position from August 2008 through August 2010. The concentration near the center shows that Vela was in the sensitive region of the LAT field during much of that period. Born in the death explosion of a massive star within our Milky Waygalaxy, the Vela Pulsar is a neutron star spinning 11 times a second, seen as the brightest persistent source in the gamma-ray sky.