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Gurgling stream,
over stone and limb,
water splashing,
near the shore.
Memories are gone
here no more.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The Pelican Nebula is slowly being transformed. IC 5070 (the official designation) is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. The Pelican, however, receives much study because it is a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The featured picture was produced in three specific colors -- light emitted by sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen -- that can help us to better understand these interactions. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming the cold gas to hot gas, with the advancing boundary between the two, known as an ionization front, visible in bright orange on the right. Particularly dense tentacles of cold gas remain. Millions of years from now, the Pelican nebula, bounded by dark nebula LDN 935, might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will surely leave something that appears completely different.

Photo by Abe Jones

George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950), was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Read more

Trust in God,
I've been told.
Hearing this
has gotten old.

If God shuts a door,
He opens a window.
What kind of blind faith
is that? Not what I know.

If it sounds like,
my faith I've lost,
it's a risk I take,
She has paid the cost.

My orbit, once stable,
is slipping towards,
oblivion, the sweet
sound of lost dreams.

One life is ending,
one life, lies undirected,
sliding into lost
memories of oblivion.

I wrest my feelings
of memories, with thee,
from out my heart,
so unfortunately.

Life's dreams
of us together,
are now gone,
briefly like the weather.

Thoughts invade,
my aging brain.
Same as before,
I missed the train.

In she walks,
an older woman,
probably born,
before I began.

From blue to red,
he said to me. "It's
where I plan,
not to be.

I know when things,
are not all right
and must adjust
to our eyesight.

Let me see,
the way you are,
still afoot and
can't afford a car.

Away I went,
engine a wail,
realizing not
I left a trail.

So, I was told,
to no avail,
to leave evidence,
of mental jail.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What created this unusual space ribbon? The answer: one of the most violent explosions ever witnessed by ancient humans. Back in the year 1006 AD, light reached Earth from a stellar explosion in the constellation of the Wolf (Lupus), creating a "guest star" in the sky that appeared brighter than Venus and lasted for over two years. The supernova, now cataloged at SN 1006, occurred about 7,000 light years away and has left a large remnant that continues to expand and fade today. Pictured here is a small part of that expanding supernova remnant dominated by a thin and outwardly moving shock front that heats and ionizes surrounding ambient gas. The supernova remnant SN 1006 now has a diameter of nearly 60 light years.