Celestial Bauble

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              ‘I’m forever bubbles blowing,’
              might the macrocosm sing,
              seeing how ripples keep growing
              in bursts of celestial bling?

              Supernova traces
              ornament the sky,
              effervescent faces,
              ere they fade and die.

              In the Large Magellanic Cloud,
              a colorful creation
              of a rounded gaseous shroud
              has a long appellation

              with numbers after SNR.
              The image is suggestive
              perhaps of cosmic brane afar
              or stellar bauble festive.

              It’s thousands of light-years away
              in Dorado’s astral group.
              This splendid optical display
              resembles a soft-hued hoop.

              From composite data was made
              that spectacle to appear
              like vast pastel balloon portrayed
              as delicate-looking sphere.

              Mysteries lie in space to probe,
              and starry heights to explore,
              while troubles on our earthly globe
              plague mankind from shore to shore.

              We’re forever bubbles blowing,
              building castles in the air,
              lost in the coming and going
              of life’s too fleeting affair.

              Death shall overtake us.
              Is it what it seems?
              Could that sleep awake us
              to enlightened dreams?


              ~ Harley White

            

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Inspiration for poem is from article and image ~ SNR 0509-67.5: Supernova Bubble Resembles Holiday Ornament...

Also ~ Hubble Solves Mystery on Source of Supernova in Nearby Galaxy...

Additional information came from article ~ Hubble Solves Mystery on Source of Supernova in Nearby Galaxy...

Further influence in the crafting of the stanzas derived from I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles, a popular American song which debuted in 1918, was first published in 1919, and is now in the public domain.

Doris Day singing the chorus of I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles, with lyrics…

Article with info about bubble universes and branes (membranes) ~ Why there might be many more universes besides our own…

In addition, inspiration derived from the teachings and writings of Nichiren Daishōnin, as well as Martin Bradley’s interpretative writings about them…

Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō means to devote our lives to and found them on (Nam[u]) the Utterness of the Dharma (Myōhō) [entirety of existence, enlightenment and unenlightenment] permeated by the underlying white lotus flower-like mechanism of the interdependence of cause, concomitancy and effect (Renge) in its whereabouts of the ten [psychological] realms of dharmas [which is every possible psychological wavelength] (Kyō).

The reason that we continually recite Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō

“The reality of our lives is that we are suspended in a ‘balloon’, wherein there are both 1) birth, maturing, becoming old, sickness, decline, and the finality of death (shō, rō, byō, shi) which applies to living beings, and 2) coming into existence, lasting as long as they should, falling apart, and finally ceasing to exist (shō, jū, i, metsu) of all that is inanimate, including stellar entities. Within this ‘balloon’ of the ‘reality of our lives’, the interdependence of cause, concomitancy and effect [Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō] is a completely valid equation.”

~ Martin Bradley

Preface of The Dharma Flower Sutra (Lotus Sutra) Seen through the Oral Transmission of Nichiren

The ‘bubble’ is all that remains of a supernova explosion witnessed on Earth about 400 years ago. The bubble-shaped shroud of gas is expanding at more than 11 million miles per hour or 5,000 kilometers per second. This image of Type Ia Supernova Remnant 0509-67.5 was made by combining data from two of NASA’s Great Observatories. The result shows soft green and blue hues of heated material from the X-ray data surrounded by the glowing pink optical shell, which shows the ambient gas being shocked by the expanding blast wave from the supernova.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/J.Hughes et al, Optical: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)