Pluto: A Poem

Posted by Marina Snyder – September 07, 2016

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Categories: Literature & the Arts Science & Cosmology

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To wrap up our tour of the solar system, we wanted to conclude with a poem by Maggie Dietz from Richard Grossinger’s Pluto. Though the beloved dward planet has been reclassified, it is far from forgotten!

Pluto

Maggie Dietz

Don’t feel small. We all have
been demoted. Go on being

moon or rock or orb, buoyant
and distant, smallest craft ball

at Vanevenhoven’s Hardware
spray-painted purple or day-glow

orange for a child’s elliptical vision
of fish line, cardboard and foam.

No spacecraft has touched you,
no flesh met the luster of your

heavenly body. Little cold one, blow
your horn. No matter what you are

planet, and something other than
planet, ancient but not “classical,”

the controversy over what to call you
light-hours from your ears. On Earth

we tend to nurture the diminutive,
root for the diminished. None

of your neighbors knows your name.
Nothing has changed. If Charon’s

not your moon, who cares? She
remains unmoved, your companion.

Tags: Poetry Astronomy

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