Texts: Infinity and Beyond

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Infinity and Beyond – Como Planetarium
April 15, 2016: 7:00pm & 8:30pm
 

Onomata planêtôn            Eric Banks
 
Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury, Sun.
Hades, Poseidon, Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus, Ares, Gaia, Aphrodite, Hermes, Helios
Pluto, Neptunus, Uranus, Saturnus, Jupiter, Mars, Terra, Venus Mercurius, Sol
Also listed: moons of Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Earth
 
Spheres of Influence            Paul John Rudoi
I. Comet
The comet dances with the sun. It’s orbit’s curled
In conic sections in our heads. It beguiles
Ten billion eyes fanned across a peackock world
When it fans its tail across ten million miles,
Then, perihelion past, bends to its out-bound pace
Beyond the Dame of Love, the Lord of War
And paradise to let towards open space--
The earth gone now and sun shrunk to star.
 
There titanic galaxies redden and recede
Like trans-cosmic steamers plunging into night,
And a comet’s a raft on the Sea of Naught
Where “Let there be light!” seems to have gone unsaid,
And God’s forgot his great decree
That Being is but Nothing cannot be.
-Comet by Jim Togeas
 
II. You Carry Oceans Within
Your every cell is a galaxy,
with its own ellipses and orbits, nuclei
like miniature suns lighting up your
insides. You carry oceans within,
comprised of water as you are,
your pulse the universe’s rhythm,
that interaction of gases and matter and heat.
So it’s no mistake when I tell you
your movements are tidal,
or that I want you close
because gravity is like that,
or that when I hold you
I am holding the world.
-Biological Galaxies, original text by Sara Dailey
 

Clay Jug            Edie Hill
Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains,
and the maker of canyons and pine mountains!
All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions of stars.
The acid that tests gold is there, and the one who judges jewels.
And the music from the strings no one touches, and the source of all water.
 
If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.
-Adapted from Robert Bly's versions of Kabir. Copyright 1977, Robert Bly. Text used by permission of Robert Bly
 
Tabula siderum zodiaco            Eric Banks
See program notes.
 
Constellation            Frank Ticheli
II. The Falling Star
I saw a star slide down the sky,
Blinding the north as it went by,
Too burning and too quick to hold,
Too lovely to be bought or sold,
Good only to make wishes on
And then forever to be gone.
-Sara Teasdale
 
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (reimagined)            Jack Vishneski & Kate Maynor
 
Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.
Then the traveler in the dark thanks you for your tiny spark.
In the dark sky you keep, for you never shut your eye.
When the blazing sun is gone, when he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light, little star,
Though I know not what you are.
-Jane Taylor