For my parents, who launched me on my journey, and for Ira and Atley and the next generation of spacefarers
Copyright © 2020 Donna Kane
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, [email protected].
Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.
P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0
Edited by Silas White
Cover design by Anna Comfort O’Keeffe
Text design by Shed Simas / Onça Design
Printed and bound in Canada
Printed on 100% recycled paper
Harbour Publishing acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Orrery / Donna Kane.
Names: Kane, Donna, 1959– author.
Description: Poems.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200253867 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200253875 | ISBN 9781550179187 (softcover) | ISBN 9781550179194 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Pioneer 10 (Spacecraft)—Poetry.
Classification: LCC PS8621.A54 O77 2020 | DDC C811/.6—dc23
Table of Contents
1 IOh Be a Fine Girl, Kiss Me 11March 2, 1972, Forecast for Northern BC 12Dear Pioneer 10 13Letter to the Scientists at the Ames Research Center 14Jupiter’s Great Red Spot 15Depiction of a Man and a Woman on the Pioneer 10 Space Probe Plaque 16The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You 18Pioneer 10, I Hear You 19Pioneer 10 Parsed 20Eulogy for Analog 21January 22, 2003, or the Day NASA Sent Its Last Official Signal to Pioneer 10 22Space Shuttle Columbia 23Microraptor gui 24Pioneer 10 Instruments 25On the Material World 29
2 II Ascension 33 Vancouver, August 2018 34 To Us 35 Autumn 36 Probability 38 Museums of Natural History 39 Opposable Thumb 40 Epiphenomenalism 41 Blizzard 42 Ghost Off the Coast of Sandspit, October 27, 2012 43 Resonant Frequency 44 Phone Survey 45 Bitten 46 The Abyss 48 Grounded 49 Magpies 50 Visitation 52 What If Nostalgia Is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End 53 Breastbone 54
3 III April 57 Consciousness 58 Consciousness II 59 Fault Lines 60 Fungus Love 61 Slinky 62 Tasseography 63 Aubade 64 Intrusions 65 Absorption III 66 On the Dilemma of Mind and Body 67 Heron and Fish 68 Horse Chestnut 69 The Measurer, the Measuring Device and the Thing Being Measured 70
