I'm honored that Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff has asked me to perform the poems "To the Planet Formerly Known as Pluto" and "Clyde Tombaugh" at the 2023 I ❤ Pluto Festival at the Orpheum Theater on Feb. 18.
I'll be sharing the stage with Lowell Observatory Historian Kevin Schindler, who will relive Clyde Tombaugh’s day of discovering Pluto, 93 years ago.
The keynote is Astronaut Nicole Stott, who flew with the space shuttle Discovery on missions STS-128 and STS-133, space shuttle Atlantis on STS-129 and twice to the Internation Space Station on Expedition 20 and Expedition 21. Stott will talk about her career and wrote a book "Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – And Our Mission to Protect It."
She creatively combines the awe and wonder of her spaceflight experience with her artwork to inspire everyone’s appreciation of our role as crewmates here on Spaceship Earth.
She is a veteran NASA Astronaut with two spaceflights and 104 days as a crewmember on both the International Space Station (ISS) and the Space Shuttle. Personal highlights of her time in space include performing a spacewalk (10th woman to do so), flying the robotic arm to capture the first free-flying HTV, painting a watercolor (now on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum), working with her international crew on science that is all about improving life on Earth, and of course the life changing view of our home planet. She is also a NASA Aquanaut. In preparation for spaceflight she was a crew member on an 18-day saturation dive mission at the Aquarius undersea laboratory.
Nicole believes that the international model of peaceful and successful cooperation we have experienced in the extreme environments of space and sea holds the key to the same kind of peaceful and successful cooperation for all of humanity here on Earth.
On her post-NASA mission, Nicole is a co-founder of the Space for Art Foundation — uniting a planetary community of children through the awe and wonder of space exploration and the healing power of art.
"Dear Pluto"
By Christopher Fox Graham
April 20, 2012
To the planet formerly known as Pluto,
Though we will never meet
I think I know you
I am a speck of organic matter
standing on the surface of your sister
my people and I
are converted from ice and dust
electrified into existence
by the mere circumstances
of your sister Earth and nephew Moon
dancing with tide pools
when they were still in their infancy
mere molecules slammed together
and held onto each other in strings
which took billions of years
to mistake themselves in their reproduction
to form this all-too-young boy
sending you this letter
forgive my impetuousness, dear Pluto
but compared to you,
I only have a second
before this organic matter caves in on itself
becomes dust and water to form something new
all I have is my voice
and I beg you to listen
because although we will never meet
I think I know you
I’m not sure if you will receive this letter
In the time it takes to reach you,
I could bounce between here and the sun 16 times
measured on your timescale
my country is not even a year old yet
You’re farther away from the sun
than any of your siblings
and while the rest of those planets circulate in lockstep
in the same elliptical orbit
yours is full of highs and lows
as you rise above the plane
and drop beneath it
because you’re either bipolar
of just refuse to conform
be glad you’ve been able to do it so long
here, those who are different
either by choice or accident
wind up getting bullied, brutalized or crucified
and while I could explain what those words mean
let’s hope that by the time one of us stands on your surface
we’ve forgotten what they mean, too
At Lowell Observatory in the hills overlooking Flagstaff
astronomer Clyde Tombaugh picked you out from the black
he watched you wander at the edge of the solar system
and noted how you keep your distance
from everyone else like you
I know what it feels like to be alone, too
there are times when people here
believe the sun is so far away they don’t feel warm anymore
and they stare out into the black
and wonder what’s like to just let go
I’m glad you’ve stayed with us, dear Pluto
you show us that even when the universe is terrifying cold
there’s some light to hold on to
some reason to keep moving
and even out there you and your moon Charon
prove you can find love anywhere
since we began to worship stars
we have followed your siblings
the rocky worlds, the gas giants
to us, if they were bigger than an asteroid or moon
and weren’t furnaces like the sun,
they were a planet
deserving the name of a god
an astrological house
and a certain amount of inexplicable reverence
you were nine children of a yellow sun
on the rural edge of the galaxy
but now because your size doesn’t fit new rules
the International Astronomical Union on my world
has decided you are no longer a planet
you don’t meet the qualifications anymore
you no longer govern an astrological house
they took you away from you were to us
because some ink on paper said you didn’t matter anymore
they put you a box labeled “dwarf planets” or “Plutoids”
only to be ostracized from your brothers and sisters
by faceless strangers at the stroke of pen
here, we label people too,
segregate them into boxes
based on the color of their skins
or which one of those gods they called out to while dying
or whether they love someone with the same or different parts
or in what way they their throats make noises to communicate
or even by where they were born
as if point of origin means anything
on a planet spinning 1,600 kilometers per second,
where specks like me have wandered to every part of it
tell me, dear Pluto
can you see the borders of our nations from out there?
it seems that’s all we can see down here sometimes
can you tell us apart?
if we one day reach you
dig our fingers into your dirt
would you care about what language we used
to tell each other
how beautiful the moment was?
Dear Pluto,
I know what it feels like to be small
I’m still a little boy, too
playing grown-up games
wondering what happens
when there’s nothing left to orbit anymore
Though we will never meet
you don’t have to answer this letter if it ever reaches you
but I think you know me,
I am a tiny voice on your sister Earth
and you are Pluto, the ninth planet of the sun
"Clyde Tombaugh"
A companion poem to "Dear Pluto"
January 27, 2016
The Kansas boy stares into the sky
counting stars with his fingers
pretending he can touch each one
playing piano keys with constellations
the spheres make music most us will never hear
but he orchestrates symphonies
oboes in Orion
clarinets in Cancer
violins in Virgo
percussion rumbling off supernova timpanies
snare drums on the skin of black holes
while spinning quasars keep perfect rhythm
the boy, now a teen measures stars with his telescopes
built from leftover parts
shaping steel and mirrors
to bend the light down into his hands
he wants to hold the weight of stardust
in his palm
the boy, now a man,
works on Mars Hill
the evening shift at Lowell Observatory
scouring the images for differences
one single speck out of place
but these were skies he could paint from memory
on a night like tonight
a cold February
the man became a boy again
when he found a spot
hide-and-seeking with him
telling him the stars and planets were looking back at us
an undiscovered instrument
making music he was the first to hear
a ninth symphony he held for a moment
heard alone, echoing in solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world
76 years later,
nine years after his death
mankind's ship in a bottle
broke the bonds of earth to reach out
and find New Horizons
in the cold dark of space
in a case no bigger than heart of a boy
now 2.97 billion miles from Kansas
from Mars Hill
from our entire history
are the ashes of the man who first heard the music
after six years alone in the dark
he traveled farther than anyone in history
to visit a world unseen by human eyes
and last July, the man became a boy again
matching his imagination to the globe in front of him
visiting an undiscovered country held for a moment
a solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world
at that distance, signals and light take 4 and half hours to reach home
in those hours,
Clyde Tombaugh,
you had a world captivated in the silence
waiting 4 billion years
for someone to visit
what did you talk about?
did she ask
what the sun feels like
when so much closer?
how it warms your skin in summer?
did she tell you her story?
what it’s like to be so far away, alone in night?
how her years pass in centuries?
did you tell her about us?
about Kansas
about Mars Hill
about what it feels like to hold stardust in your palm?
did you tell her there were 7 billion boys and girls back home
waiting to see her for the first time?
was she eager to meet you since she first saw you
playing hide and seek with your telescopes
or counting stars with your fingers
or did she just sing a song?
one half of an unfinished duet
a harmony you already knew
something slow and beautiful
a secret
only two lovers
can understand
 |
Astronaut Nicole Stott, from right; Alden Tombaugh, son of Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh; Alden's wife Cherylee Tombaugh; poet Christopher Fox Graham; Athena Zelda Nebula Skye Sylvia Diana Fox Graham; and Kevin Schindler, historian of Lowell Observatory, who organized the Night of Discovery event at the Orpheum Theater in Flagstaff.
I was honored to perform poems about Pluto and Clyde Tombaugh. Alden was very complimentary and asked for copies (which I had pre-printed and shared with Kevin, Alden and Nicole). Athena had a great time and ate loads of food. Lowell's senior astronomer also announced a 2,430-km diameter asteroid between Jupiter and Mars is now officially called (28724) Stott. |
