HUBBLE THURSDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2010

(Giant Disk of Cold Gas and Dust Fuels Possible Black Hole at the Core of NGC 4261)

Every Thursday, I post a very large photograph of some corner of space captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and available online from the picture album at HubbleSite, followed by poetry after the jump.


NOSTALGIA

by Dawn Potter

It was darker then, in the nights when the cars
Came sliding around the traffic circle, when the headlights
Speckled with rain traveled the bedroom walls
and vanished; when the typewriter, the squeaking chair,
the slow voice of the radio stirred the night air like a fan.
Of course, the ones we loved were beautiful—
slim, dark-haired, intent on their books.
The rain came swishing against the lamp-lit windows.
The cat purred in his chair. A clock sang,
and we lay nearly asleep, almost dreaming,
almost alone, nearly gone—the days fly so;
and the nights, like sleep, disappear without memory.