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An old writing, for you.

A withered tree,
branches askew,
moss covered limbs,
reminding me of who?

Wayward branches,
straight in the air,
reminds me of you,
when you spiked your hair.

Feeling ignored,
unappreciated?
Join the
Woe is Me Society,

or successfully withdraw,
from Social Activities.
An internal choice:
Nobody loves me,
Everybody hates me,
guess I'll go eat some worms.

Words over here,
Words over there,
but never are there,
Words to spare.

Where do words
go, when you orate?
Do they vanish in air
or just head for the gate?

Words, once lost,
have now been found.
Why words which are silent,
will never have sound.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The well-known Pleiades star cluster is slowly destroying part of a passing cloud of gas and dust. The Pleiades is the brightest open cluster of stars on Earth's sky and can be seen from almost any northerly location with the unaided eye. Over the past 100,000 years, a field of gas and dust is moving by chance right through the Pleiades star cluster and is causing a strong reaction between the stars and dust. The passing cloud might be part of the Radcliffe wave, a newly discovered structure of gas and dust connecting several regions of star formation in the nearby part of our Milky Way galaxy. Pressure from the stars' light significantly repels the dust in the surrounding blue reflection nebula, with smaller dust particles being repelled more strongly. A short-term result is that parts of the dust cloud have become filamentary and stratified. The featured deep image incorporates nearly 9 hours of exposure and was captured from Utah Desert Remote Observatory in Utah, USA, last year.

Photo by Craig Stocks

The table was in the back of the room,
tucked away, in the corner. Shadows crept,
across the faces of those seated.
She was dressed in furs and an evening gown,
with a Boa wrapped around her delicate neck.
It became obvious that she didn't belong in the
dinginess of this seedy bar. Nevertheless those
present, admired the beauty of her appearance.
No one paid attention to her presence, at least not,
visibly, but they were aware of her presence.

Time passed slowly, throughout the early afternoon.
Soon, the after-work crowd would arrive and do their
usual, "scoping out" of those in the room.
Some brave self, anointed "Casanova" would venture
forth to attempt a conversation with this beautiful woman
tucked into the shadowed recess of the corner.
One such, came forward. He was politely refused to
have a conversation. She definitely was waiting for a
specific person.

Around 7, in the early evening, a foppishly dressed man,
approached, said a few words and sat with the woman.
Their conversation was quite animated, with hand gestures,
and strained laughter. It must not have been pleasant for he
stood up and abruptly left.
A few minutes later, the lovely lady, arose and walked with long
strides, out the door.
I'm unsure of where she went, but there was never another glimpse of
this beauty, who will always be a mystery.

O memory, hope, love of finished years,
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream,
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
   
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath,
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 –1894), was an English writer born in London. She authored many romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Love Came Down at Christmas",  She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Lost and alone,
in the dark,
trying to remember,
where did I park.

Alone she sat,
under a tree,
searching the horizon,
looking for thee.

Long was her wait.
It shouldn't have been,
but staying, she would,
staying for him.

A love story,
beginning long ago,
coming to finality,
deservedly so.

Sad were the times,
after they had met.
Society in general,
wouldn't let her forget.

Forgetting the why,
her first love left that day,
memories and love went
to a place faraway.

Now she awaits,
waiting for he,
with a love which,
was meant to be.

When the cats away,
the mice will play,
except when the liquor,
is locked away.

Subtle message?
I think not,
more likely someone,
in charge, just forgot.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What color is Pluto, really? It took some effort to figure out. Even given all of the images sent back to Earth when the robotic New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto in 2015, processing these multi-spectral frames to approximate what the human eye would see was challenging. The result featured here, released three years after the raw data was acquired by New Horizons, is the highest resolution true color image of Pluto ever taken. Visible in the image is the light-colored, heart-shaped, Tombaugh Regio, with the unexpectedly smooth Sputnik Planitia, made of frozen nitrogen, filling its western lobe. New Horizons found the dwarf planet to have a surprisingly complex surface composed of many regions having perceptibly different hues. In total, though, Pluto is mostly brown, with much of its muted color originating from small amounts of surface methane energized by ultraviolet light from the Sun.