Here’s what Andrew and I have completed so far on our poems. It’s still a work in progress.

Andrew:

The Radiation

Amplifies your photons

You stimulate me

X

Optics adapted

A new outlook on my world

Shooting for the stars

X

Now I am stronger

I can do more for myself

And more for others

X

My friends, astronomers

The Keck Observatory

Mamalahoa

X

Once, things were unclear,

I love you so very much,

Bright sexy laser.

X

Mine:

I’m lost and adrift, searching through a vast black sea,

Without a star to show me the way;

I can only hope my helmsman’s aim and judgment is true,

I go whichever direction he points;

It’s as if his map is made to divulge only directions,

It tells which way but not how far;

If only there was a means to remedy this predicament,

A veritable Sherpa of the stars;

Of all the places in the universe the sky is the ficklest,

It distorts what seems to be clear,

It creates a turbid cloud before the stars, a mirage,

Making penetration a fool’s task.