CHRISTINE HEMP Writer Poet Communication Coach & Consultant
Connecting Cord listen to Christine Hemp reading this poem
For the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite
Sent to Record the Birth of Stars. December 5, 1998
When a child is waiting
to be born, light shines
inside. No one
but the mother knows what trembles there.
She’s the blanket, the safe
cloud, hiding her pin-point
of glittery possibility.
Far beyond our monthly
tides and willful moon,
light years cut a path
to other embryos.
Clouds collapse, distant
swarms of gasses swirl
through invisible infrared.
Sometime when you’re
in the bathtub or driving
down the freeway, look up.
Turn away from grief
and your body which is fading fast. Behind your reflection
in the water or the rear-view
mirror, a star is asking
to be born. Feel
the ache in your forearms
when you pass a lifeless cat
along the road? The gash in your
heart when your lover leaves?
These are but the birth
pangs of a distant body
also yours. Waves of becoming
move out from wrinkled
sheets of time and space.
Heaven herself lets out a cry.
Transformation makes us writhe.
But when the crisis passes, a new light sings: Fiery child,
sparking us to see a bigger
flame. Oh, and it’s
burning, burning, burning!
--Christine Hemp
Planet Earth, 1998
LIVING ON EARTH with host Steve Curwood,
December 1999 Hemp sends a poem into space
on a NASA rocket.Here she describes the launch.
Rocket Poem in Space (mp3)
Hemp's complete Space Poem (mp3)
Christine Hemp listening
as NASA rocket carrying
"Connecting Cord"is blasted toward the cosmos it..
Sent to Record the Birth of Stars. December 5, 1998
When a child is waiting
to be born, light shines
inside. No one
but the mother knows what trembles there.
She’s the blanket, the safe
cloud, hiding her pin-point
of glittery possibility.
Far beyond our monthly
tides and willful moon,
light years cut a path
to other embryos.
Clouds collapse, distant
swarms of gasses swirl
through invisible infrared.
Sometime when you’re
in the bathtub or driving
down the freeway, look up.
Turn away from grief
and your body which is fading fast. Behind your reflection
in the water or the rear-view
mirror, a star is asking
to be born. Feel
the ache in your forearms
when you pass a lifeless cat
along the road? The gash in your
heart when your lover leaves?
These are but the birth
pangs of a distant body
also yours. Waves of becoming
move out from wrinkled
sheets of time and space.
Heaven herself lets out a cry.
Transformation makes us writhe.
But when the crisis passes, a new light sings: Fiery child,
sparking us to see a bigger
flame. Oh, and it’s
burning, burning, burning!
--Christine Hemp
Planet Earth, 1998
LIVING ON EARTH with host Steve Curwood,
December 1999 Hemp sends a poem into space
on a NASA rocket.Here she describes the launch.
Rocket Poem in Space (mp3)
Hemp's complete Space Poem (mp3)
Christine Hemp listening
as NASA rocket carrying
"Connecting Cord"is blasted toward the cosmos it..