Patrick Moore has passed away to the realm
of photo images, where it appears
the dead observe us, or we observe them
in mutual fixity, the past of years
in the present, in the meeting of eyes.
But we can look away, as he once did
from the face of the night sky bright with stars,
to the mundane, our feelings comforted
by easy change of mood, limited powers
that sleep revives, unlike death’s endless hours.
If the dead achieve a stance beyond time’s
light and shadow, the human face achieves,
peering through time like a transparency,
Patrick Moore sees more than astronomy
defines, aspires to, the all at once.
