![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A something white, uncertain
Apr. 3rd, 2012 11:00 pm
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 8. High today: 11, at 1 and 6 p.m. The dewpoint has come up eight degrees from -10 at 3 a.m.
Can you see Venus in the broad daylight? You can; I did. For the next three or four weeks it will be just south of dead centre in the sky at around 4 p.m. or a little after, and actually it will get easier to see until about the middle of the month, atmospheric conditions being equal (and they should be very good for the next few days around here, if the forecast holds), as the angle between Venus, Earth, and the sun will be greatest around then. The next time the moon will be up there pointing it out will be April 24, but by then the sun will be closing in on it (though I don't know whether by too much). Yesterday afternoon I didn't have the moon to help me; I just lay on my back on the path-stones in the backyard and stared up into the blue. I was surprised how hard it is to do that in the daylight, just to stare into the blue sky, and since I was surprised, I guess I've never done it before, but then why would you--not just look at the blue sky, even look around at it, but open your eyes wide and stare deep into it. After a few eye-watering minutes I caught sight of something way, way up, drifting west to east; could have been a hawk, could have been a balloon--could have been a weather balloon? are there such things anymore?--who knows what. It drifted out of sight, my eyes drifted back, and I had pretty much quit (that's always the dangerous time when you're fishing, when you've quit and you're just keeping on because you want to stay out there; if a good fish hits then you won't be ready and you'll probably lose it) when it was just there, there it was, a little white speck. I was a bit stunned that it could just appear like that without my concentrating on finding it; I didn't quite believe it for a few seconds, and stared at it to see if it would move, but it didn't; it just faded in and out a little. I stared eye-wateringly at it for a while, and then came in.
So, I've seen it. I guess I have. Have I? I've seen a white speck near the top of the sky in broad daylight. It happens to have been Venus, I happen to know (or at least very confidently believe). But such a tiny thing, so uncertainly there at all--there is such a slight margin, such a tiny difference between having seen it and not having seen it. Now what?
(I can't believe I had never noticed the rhythmic pattern of "For Once, Then, Something" until just now. In my grade 13 "Writer's Craft" class, I gave a presentation on poetic forms, and I used it as an example of a kind of irregular sonnet. Somehow then I didn't notice that the second foot of each line (which is basically trochaic pentameter--five feet of two syllables, stressed followed by unstressed) is a dactyl (stressed followed by two unstressed) ... or I don't remember noticing, and I'm amazed to see it now. (I suppose I thought it was just trochaic pentameter with an extra syllable in each line to avoid monotony.) It seems like a great device for heightening the plaintiveness--Why oh why did you do that? Oh, forget it.)
Can you see Venus in the broad daylight? You can; I did. For the next three or four weeks it will be just south of dead centre in the sky at around 4 p.m. or a little after, and actually it will get easier to see until about the middle of the month, atmospheric conditions being equal (and they should be very good for the next few days around here, if the forecast holds), as the angle between Venus, Earth, and the sun will be greatest around then. The next time the moon will be up there pointing it out will be April 24, but by then the sun will be closing in on it (though I don't know whether by too much). Yesterday afternoon I didn't have the moon to help me; I just lay on my back on the path-stones in the backyard and stared up into the blue. I was surprised how hard it is to do that in the daylight, just to stare into the blue sky, and since I was surprised, I guess I've never done it before, but then why would you--not just look at the blue sky, even look around at it, but open your eyes wide and stare deep into it. After a few eye-watering minutes I caught sight of something way, way up, drifting west to east; could have been a hawk, could have been a balloon--could have been a weather balloon? are there such things anymore?--who knows what. It drifted out of sight, my eyes drifted back, and I had pretty much quit (that's always the dangerous time when you're fishing, when you've quit and you're just keeping on because you want to stay out there; if a good fish hits then you won't be ready and you'll probably lose it) when it was just there, there it was, a little white speck. I was a bit stunned that it could just appear like that without my concentrating on finding it; I didn't quite believe it for a few seconds, and stared at it to see if it would move, but it didn't; it just faded in and out a little. I stared eye-wateringly at it for a while, and then came in.
So, I've seen it. I guess I have. Have I? I've seen a white speck near the top of the sky in broad daylight. It happens to have been Venus, I happen to know (or at least very confidently believe). But such a tiny thing, so uncertainly there at all--there is such a slight margin, such a tiny difference between having seen it and not having seen it. Now what?
(I can't believe I had never noticed the rhythmic pattern of "For Once, Then, Something" until just now. In my grade 13 "Writer's Craft" class, I gave a presentation on poetic forms, and I used it as an example of a kind of irregular sonnet. Somehow then I didn't notice that the second foot of each line (which is basically trochaic pentameter--five feet of two syllables, stressed followed by unstressed) is a dactyl (stressed followed by two unstressed) ... or I don't remember noticing, and I'm amazed to see it now. (I suppose I thought it was just trochaic pentameter with an extra syllable in each line to avoid monotony.) It seems like a great device for heightening the plaintiveness--Why oh why did you do that? Oh, forget it.)
