An angel we have seen on high
sweetly watching o’er the skies,
guardian spirit, floating nigh
where the swan-like Cygnus lies.
Bright above it, starlight’s shining.
Dark the cloud beneath its glow.
What the tidings it’s divining,
be they gladsome, full of woe?
About two thousand light-years far
that nebula emission,
where budding astral newborns are
which bloom into fruition,
labeled S One O Six in brief,
has assumed an hourglass guise
shown in this cosmic leitmotif
as heavenly being wise.
Some sense an epic narrative
of verse macaronic toned
with golden rule imperative
that’s for centuries been honed.
Bluish wings like those in snowscape
fashioned on the winter ground
mimic figure in Van Gogh-scape,
after Rembrandt model, crowned,
blown from winds at center stellar
into that iconic shape
for a yuletide storyteller
to leave listeners agape.
Hot gas in ripples and ridges
with cooler milieu combines
as bipolar jetted bridges
sculpt the ethereal lines.
A frenzy of fervid motion
belies its facade serene
like turbulence on an ocean
in seemingly placid scene.
Man has blundered from war to war
blind to future, deaf to past
seeking deities to implore
somewhere midst the cosmos vast.
In these distempered times we know—
as did Sappho long ago
invoke a goddess, from below—
when fortune’s winds falsely blow
let’s urge that angel visitant—
Venus in her ageless rhyme—
to come in pity vigilant,
a needful presence sublime,
thus to animate stargazers
regardless of the season
to be inner space trailblazers
through cause, effect, and reason,
plus to tap the enlightened state
from where true wisdom’s springing,
creating beatific fate,
limned in that angel winging.
Then shall grand sidereal choirs
serenade in countless throngs
caroling forth our hearts’ desires
with a jubilee of songs
and help awaken hope’s rebirth
for everlasting peace on earth!