Sunday Pages: "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"
A poem by Walt Whitman
Dear Reader,
Winter is coming. No, seriously: it begins tomorrow—although here in New York, Jack Frost got a little head start, as you can see in the photo I took early Thursday morning from the window of my office.
Today is something even more important than the pesky solstice, which after all happens yearly. Today, my friends, marks the one-year anniversary of the creation of the United States Space Force, Donald John Trump’s greatest—and only—achievement. Friday, we found out that Space Force forces will be known as—wait for it—GUARDIANS. As the pandemic claimed another 3,000 American lives, Mike Pence, titular head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, made time in his oh-so-busy schedule to make this super urgent announcement:
Rejected names included X-Men, Star Troopers, Galaxy Questers, Watchmen, Trekkers, Mandalorians, Moonrakers, Mars Attackers, Jedi Knights, Rising Signs, and MFM/WFV, which stands for “Men from Mars, Women from Venus.”
To keep with the space theme for “Sunday Pages,” I thought I would share this poem by Walt Whitman:
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
There are a few ways to interpret the poem. The literal way is: “This otherwise smart guy is too lazy to do math.” The MAGA way is something like: “Science is dumb, what can it teach us about anything, fuck Fauci.” Neither of these are particularly compelling readings.
What Whitman is actually describing here is ineffability. While we can study the stars, and bask in astonishing knowledge about our vast and seemingly-boundless universe—as Paul Simon put it, “The way we look to a distant constellation that’s dying in the corner of the sky / These are the days of miracle and wonder, and don’t cry”—there are some things that will always, by their nature, elude scientific explanation: Wonder (as Simon said). Art. Love. Erotic desire. Humor. Religious ecstasy. Goodness. Compassion. Patriotism. Honor. And, yes, Justice.
Thirty-one days.
Nice.
I love your writing, Greg, and today's entry is extra special. It reminded me of a similar event which I experienced years ago:
Back in 2003, I was dating a psychiatrist who was physically small, but who had a penchant for all things big. One summer night, with great pride, he yanked a humungous, computerized telescope out of a closet beneath one of the stairwells in his rambling country home. He wanted to set the telescope up in his backyard, so that we could look at the stars up close. I helped him lug the telescope outside, heave it up onto a tripod, and untangle a long orange extension cord to plug into an outdoor socket. I was told that this was a state-of-the-art telescope, with all the latest bells and whistles that cutting-edge technology could provide in a telescope. After two hours of set-up, we were both sweaty and tired, when he turned the telescope on and it would not work. Undaunted, he dug up the instructions from somewhere in the stairwell closet, and tried to read them outside, with a flashlight.
That's when my eyes zoomed in on the oversized hammock that he'd set-up in the middle of his yard. Leaving him to his own devices, I ambled over to the hammock, plopped myself into it, and feasted on the wide expanse of shining stars overhead. Truly magnificent. Heaven's ceiling was twinkling with all the magic of a midsummer night's dream. Half an hour later, I had almost dozed off, when I was informed that the telescope was fully operational, and to come take a look at the stars up close. I yanked myself out of the hammock and made my way across the yard to peer into the supercharged lens...what I saw inside the lens was a smattering of three milky blobs. He muttered some ethereal explanation about the stars I was viewing...these three white blobs.
I don't know if he had any sense of disappointment in what the telescope had captured that night, but I sure did. I thanked him for the two-minute viewing that had taken two hours to produce, then I straightened myself out, and took in one last, magnificent look at the stars shining overhead. Creation had spilled and suspended all of its sparkles into the warm night sky...and all I'd had to do was look up.
And things are looking up indeed, Greg! 31 days.