Category: Astronomy

There’s Sirius for the winter night;
There’s Fomalhaut for fall;
Arcturus gives us vernal light,
But far above them all
June owns the highest blue-white sun:
Vega, the enchanting one.

by Ray Romine Sunday, December 9, 1951

Put on your glasses (some call ’em cheateors)–
We’re all going out a-chasing meteors.
Some like stars
And some like planets;
Some hunt comets,
A few hunt Gannets;
But we go in for something fleeteor:
I refer to the all-elusive meteor.

Wear your woolens; bring the heateor–
For the weather is cooler than any meteor.
Meteors are
Just chunks of matter
That hit our atmos-
Phere and splatter.
Drag along your choicest competeors,
For we go out to count us meteors.

Be sure there’s gas in the old two-seateor,
To get to the field where we meet the meteor;
And why should I
Who versify
Forsake economy
To learn Astronomy?
Because, at Dem Gates, dat old Saint Peteor
Might turn me down because my verse lacks meteor!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, October 9, 1946

I contemplate Orion’s toe,
Where Rigel’s white-hot blaze
Forces its celestial show
Through the starry maze.
I think upon the awful heat
Of this new-forming sun,
And touch the stuff beneath my feet,
For star and snow are one.

by Ray Romine Monday, June 18, 1951

Now nervously across the sky is stretched
Eridanus, the river, east to west.
Aquarius spills the water he has fetched;
The Sea-goat’s tail is lashing; and unrest
Keynotes the heavens. All serenity
The constellations knew is gone. For see,
They skip to dodge the mighty voice of doom:
“Orion, mighty hunter, comes. Make room!”

by Ray Romine Wednesday, March 19, 1952

On reading of their distance and their size,
Of countless years that they have rushed about,
And of the speeds at which they move, one tries
To fit hard fact to what his senses shout.
For, shower-freshened by the touch of May,
They hang just out of reach above the trees
And laugh at science in their gentle way
For such cold truth on such wann friends as these!

by Ray Romine Monday, November 17, 1952

This month, when Mother Nature nods
Above her quilted white endeavor
Designed to winter what is God’s,
I ask, what lives, this season, ever?
Til early darkness, when the eye
Picks out that spangled, armed newcomer:
Orion, turning all the sky
To compensate for lack of summer.

by Ray Romine Sunday, July 2, 1950

“What’s a star, daddy?”
“A Sun,” he replied,
“Like our day-sun, much larger,
With gases inside–“
I’m afraid that I covered
An impolite yawn
And wished I hadn’t asked,
But when he went on:
“Each sun may have planets,
With houses and trees
And toy stores and street-lights,
And autos and seas,
With boys and girls on them,
About like the earth,”
I stood still and listened
For all I was worth!

by Ray Romine Sunday, February 3, 1952

Now that September skies have reared aloft
Aquarius, pouring water to the Fish,
And Capricornus, shaped more like a dish
(Or anything but goat), my hat is doffed
To this rare season. Who has scoffed
Because the summer ends its feverish
Mad dance, should look around. For who could wish
Days finer, when the winds contribute soft
Haze curtains through which nightly all the stars
Peek out in autumn modesty for those
Who deign to look beyond our earthly bars
To where the messengers of space repose.
Though talk of wars and man-made woes increase,
The star-imbedded heavens speak of peace.

by Ray Romine Sunday, February 18, 1951

The bright elusive Fomalhaut,
Her colors flaming high,
Austerely crosses, on tiptoe,
Her empty stretch of sky.

Her regal bearing shows disdain
For small stars which in awe
Behold her go far south to reign
When summer days withdraw.

The princess struts; we pay the cost:
Her cold aloofness leaves us frost.

by Ray Romine Sunday, January 14, 1951

Leo the lion fiercely roars
Defiance at the whole outdoors;
He snarls unholy imprecations
On less aggressive constellations.
His appearance leonine
Itself declares “The sky is mine!”
But all dictators should beware
Of what is termed the lion’s share:
Despite the headline he is getting,
Leo hourly is setting.

by Ray Romine Monday, August 27, 1951