Contributor Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Posing as a brilliant evening star, Venus lies near the western horizon in this southern hemisphere, early spring, night skyscape. To create the composite view exposures tracking the sky and fixed for the foreground were taken on September 25 from Cascavel in southern Brazil. In view after sunset, Venus appears immersed in a cone of zodiacal light, sunlight scattered from dust along the Solar System's ecliptic plane. In fact from either hemisphere of planet Earth, zodiacal light is most visible after sunset near a spring equinox, (or before sunrise near an autumn equinox) when its luminous arc lies at steep angles to the horizon. Extending above the sunset on this night, the zodiacal light reaches toward rich starfields and immense interstellar dust clouds in the bulge of the central Milky Way. Follow along the Milky Way from the central bulge back toward the horizon and you'll spot the closest star system to the Sun, Alpha Centauri, a mere 4.37 light-years away.

Photo by Rodrigo Guerra

Hold me close.
Hold me tight.
Say you love me.
Kiss me good night.

A motely creature,
a holey Goat,
came to visit us
and eat what he could.
It was everything in his sight,
every plant and some wood.
Go away, Goat, let us be,
you're not included in our menagerie.
" I know," said the Goat,
"for I can talk, you see,
is that a Lilac bush
or just a small tree?"
"I'll be on my way, as you can see
for I didn't care for your hospitality."
With a shake of his head
and a flip of his tail,
he strode away from me.
He was an odd colored Goat
going away from me.

To the far side of never,
will make up this day.
Use the Sun as your lever
to pry up the haze,
as another tomorrow
is now on it's way.

I am becoming an embittered old man,
who still cares for you.
Sometimes I feel abandoned,
yet I know it isn't true,
but in my confusion,
I know not what to do.
Moving her now to Memory Care,
will benefit her too,
but the guilt in my mind
will always be true.

Do you think
Teddy Bears
fight at night?
Wouldn't it be
a wonderous sight?

I don't believe in abortions,
but it's not my choice to make
about who should live or die.
It's not for me to tell anyone,
which path they should take.
We march to a different drummer,
this is plain to see,
God Speed to all of you,
when the decision comes to thee.

"From whence came I?"
Was once asked,
a question asked in vain,
as they lay suffering,
in a World full of pain.
The answer to the question,
may not be known by man,
so we search the World for
a religion, which may explain or can,
provide the information, we need,
in this life of an also ran.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Dark markings and colorful clouds inhabit this stellar landscape. The deep and expansive view spans more than 30 full moons across crowded star fields toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E. Barnard, the obscuring interstellar dust clouds seen toward the right include B59, B72, B77 and B78, part of the Ophiuchus molecular cloud complex a mere 450 light-years away. To the eye their combined shape suggests a pipe stem and bowl, and so the dark nebula's popular name is the Pipe Nebula. Three bright nebulae gathered on the left are stellar nurseries some 5,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Sagittarius. In the 18th century astronomer Charles Messier included two of them in his catalog of bright clusters and nebulae; M8, the largest of the triplet, and colorful M20 just above. The third prominent emission region includes NGC 6559 at the far left. Itself divided by obscuring dust lanes, M20 is also known as the Trifid. M8's popular moniker is the Lagoon Nebula.

Photo by Gabriel Rodrigues Santos

The winds blew the coldness
off the waters of Puget Sound.
"Twas early in the morning then.
The fishing boats with nets abound,
a chilling fog had settled on
my favorite spot, on Puget Sound

The cave was dark,
the light was dim,
dampness in the air.
A cave of lost souls,
filled with their despair.
Souls residing in the cave;
Lost because no one cared.

There is a frailty,
in this life we live.
We see it every day,
as our loved ones,
become sick or ill
and then pass away.
They may be our friends,
or family members too.
No matter who they were
it is always hard on you.