TELL ME, KEPLER…

or

Questions On The Laws of Planetary Motion


Astropoem by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe;
Astrophotographs by Adrian Bruno Sonka

Why are
the orbits of the people
so sinuous
around the truth?

Why does
the line joining
a man to happiness
sweep out
so insignificant areas
in
so variable times?

Why is the ratio
of the squares
of the people’s deeds
so different
to the ratio
of the cubes
of their semimajor dreams?

Note: The photographs (Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn)
were made at the Bucharest Municipal Observatory
(built by Admiral Vasile Urseanu in 1908-1910),
which hosts the collection of the first Romanian astronomical magazine,
“Orion”
(edited by Victor Anestin in 1907-1912).
Adrian Bruno Sonka (the former general secretary of SARM
and a leading member of Astroclub Bucharest)
was the assistant of the regretted astronomical coordinator
Dr. Harald Alexandrescu (1945-2005)
and continues his work at this observatory.

Design by Gabriel Ivanescu
© 2007 SARM
(Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy)