Space Observatories
Overview
Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit, The sky is, up above the roof, Si bleu, si calme So blue, so calm Un arbre, par-dessus Je toit, A tree there, up above the roof, Berce sa palme. Waves leaves of palm. La cloche, dans le ciel qu'on voit, A church bell, in the sky I see, Doucement tinte. Softly tolls. Un oiseau, sur l'arbre qu'on voit, A bird, upon the tree I see, Chante sa plainte. Sadly calls. PAUL VERLAINE Like Verlaine, we are in prison. The prison is our Earth, "which is so pretty"; our atmosphere and its clouds, its "marvellous clouds". (You would think that Verlaine, Prevert and Baudelaire had been comparing notes ) The sky is up above the roof... A tree there, up above the roof... Stars in the sky, like birds ... their rays, like bells (and here we are with Apollinaire ) What we see opens the way to what we guess at; what we observe Ieads us towards the unobservable. A poem releases images, and the invisible grows big with reality. Astronomcrs are a little like poets (indirectly from the Greek 7tostco, make): they make the universe by interpreting messages, extrapolating spectra, and inventing 'models' of the cosmos or of stars - fictional constructions whose observable part constitutes only a small fraction of the whole, and which only the inductive logic of the theoretician allows us to consider as representing unique physical reality.
This item is Non-Returnable
Customers Also Bought
Details
- ISBN-13: 9789401033220
- ISBN-10: 9401033226
- Publisher: Springer
- Publish Date: November 2013
- Dimensions: 9.21 x 6.14 x 0.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.45 pounds
- Page Count: 122
Related Categories
