Sunday, July 11, 2010

Reconciled Among the Stars

This scan of the cardiovascular system shows the heart and lungs, with major blood vessels radiating from them. Photograph by Howard Sochurek. Corbis. The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

~ T.S. Eliot, from "Burnt Norton," the first poem of his Four Quartets

The aftermath of the death of a massive star (X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/S.Park et al.; Optical: Pal.Obs. DSS)

View in Google Sky