Ode to Pluto
(After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. FULL STORY.)
Ode to Pluto
Once you were so big,
The hero of the Kuiper Belt.
You shared the podium equally with the giants of the solar system,
You were one of the nine great balls of dirt or gas that circle our sun.
Alas, through no fault of your own, you are vanquished,
Never to be a “planet” again, never to be a hero.
You were just too small, too squashed, too far away.
You are too cold, too lonely, too 1930s.
Poor poor Pluto, you are just some icy nothingness now,
Your once proud place in history is no more….OR
Perhaps I shall choose to have hope in you, my Pluto.
Perhaps you shall not die so quietly,
Perhaps you will fight back.
So if you can hear me, I challenge you to defy the odds once again,
Gather passing dust with the arm of your gravity,
Convince your icy brethren to live on your surface,
Regain your shape and your luster, spin faster and hotter, grow larger and larger, but do not give up because some planet-elitists tell you that you aren’t good enough, do not set silently into that dim horizon, but fight on for your rightful place among the greatest of all the balls of dirt.
You may not yet meet some definition of what you seek to be, but to me, in my heart, you will always be the ninth planet.
Ode to Pluto
Once you were so big,
The hero of the Kuiper Belt.
You shared the podium equally with the giants of the solar system,
You were one of the nine great balls of dirt or gas that circle our sun.
Alas, through no fault of your own, you are vanquished,
Never to be a “planet” again, never to be a hero.
You were just too small, too squashed, too far away.
You are too cold, too lonely, too 1930s.
Poor poor Pluto, you are just some icy nothingness now,
Your once proud place in history is no more….OR
Perhaps I shall choose to have hope in you, my Pluto.
Perhaps you shall not die so quietly,
Perhaps you will fight back.
So if you can hear me, I challenge you to defy the odds once again,
Gather passing dust with the arm of your gravity,
Convince your icy brethren to live on your surface,
Regain your shape and your luster, spin faster and hotter, grow larger and larger, but do not give up because some planet-elitists tell you that you aren’t good enough, do not set silently into that dim horizon, but fight on for your rightful place among the greatest of all the balls of dirt.
You may not yet meet some definition of what you seek to be, but to me, in my heart, you will always be the ninth planet.
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