Dying Swan Tale Unveiled

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             A stardust veil in resplendent detail
             is with multicolors imbued
             from astral blast leaving Cygnus aghast
             in the stunning spectacle viewed.

             Supernova boom made stellar winds zoom
             into beauteous wispy guise
             as swan song story, whose gorgeous glory
             its violent dawning belies.

             This picturesque cloud of filament shroud
             concealing a cavity wall
             interacts and behaves through shocking waves
             like a vast repercussive sprawl.

             The varied tones in the nebula’s zones
             come from chemic denseness changes;
             plus hotter are blue, while green or red hue
             indicates the cooler ranges.

             That huge display many light-years away,
             two thousand one hundred in fact,
             covers six full moons of skyey festoons
             with its striking unveiling act.

             In rainbowlike stream from the Hubble team
             which shows but a part of the whole,
             what was once a star exploding afar
             is cast in sensational role.

             Some gassy fumes were emitted in plumes
             before its chromatic demise
             of curtain splendid until it ended
             with mosaic to mesmerize.

             Might this veil in Cygnus grand in bigness
             evoke in the senses instead
             thoughts of feathers chiffon as spectral swan
             whose delicate essence has fled?

             Those exquisite arts that have stirred our hearts
             and heightened awareness inspired,
             as has stargazing at skies amazing,
             for centuries have been admired.

             In Tennyson quote from verses he wrote,
             all ‘the marish-flowers that throng’
             with coronach styled by silver swan wild
             ‘were flooded with eddying song’.

             Poems live on after poets are gone,
             at any rate masterpieces
             outlast their creators or narrators,
             follies and human caprices.

             The airborne creature in ballet feature,
             that Anna Pavlova rendered,
             through faltering breath to quivering death
             the most swanlike e’er engendered,

             was classic in scope plus a timeless trope
             for our fleetingly mortal span
             and toils on earth to endow it with worth
             in our frame of woman or man.

             A sage long ago, the greatest I know,
             said virtue and merit are found
             neither in any claim to worldly fame
             nor endeavor to be renowned.

             Regardless of wealth and bodily health
             no safety exists from the realms
             which within us dwell, like ‘hunger’ or ‘hell’,
             unless we can stay at the helms

             of our inner states and direct our fates
             to attain enlightenment’s glow
             that gives rise to peace and shall never cease
             though winds of impermanence blow.

             Yet we’ll recognize where good fortune lies,
             whence the waters of wisdom flow,
             by sounding one phrase through life’s every phase
             that is Nam Myoho Renge Kyo…


             ~ Harley White

             

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Inspiration for the poem came from article ~ Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant, article with video ~ Hubble Zooms in on Shrapnel from an Exploded Star, article with video ~ Hubble Snaps Breathtaking Views of Colorful Veil Nebula (Photos, Video), Wikipedia ~ The Dying Swan, Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) in her signature ballet, “The Dying Swan” ~ choreographed by Mikhail Fokine in 1905, The Dying Swan ~ by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

In addition, inspiration derived from the teachings and writings of Nichiren Daishōnin…

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

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team