CARINA NEBULA

There it is, the panoramic view from Hubble &
it’s like looking into the sky and seeing God,
much the same as the pilot poet John Magee
must have thought soaring high in the sky.
He wrote his famous sonnet days before
his mid-air collision. A farmer said he saw
the Spitfire pilot struggling to push back
the canopy and stand up to jump from the plane
but he was too close to the ground for his parachute
to open. Years after Challenger’s tragic fall to earth
Reagan roused the inconsolable angels with the
young poet’s “slipped the surly bonds of Earth
to touch the face of God.“ Raise your hands
to the awesome God. Raise your hands & sing.


The other day thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky
and nobody knew why. David came to the house
this afternoon with a plate of Inari-Zushi
& little pieces of Oshinko with the wasabi I like
because his sister likes to cook & sends over delectable ,
dishes. I told her no one can ever make up for the 120,000
incarcerated Japanese Americans. She has nightmares
of the internment camp. I download the Carina Nebula


from the Hubble and it is like a painting in the sky.
and though David doesn’t see it, I see Michelangelo’s
iconic hand of God giving life to Adam - see it in the
Carina - a sculptured figure with powerful arms
reaching out & penetrating eyes looking down from
heaven. The evening news reports more blackbirds
falling from the sky - thousands more. Later I will
fall asleep trying to picture the face of God,
the taste of wasabi on my tongue.




About Nancy Wahl:
Nancy Wahl's awards include the Bazzanella award for short stories and a Bazzanella award for poetry. She has won two First Place awards, one in Literature Alive and one in Tiger’s Eye, plus three Honorable Mentions in the New Millennium. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in The Tule Review, New Millenium, the Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems, The Poets Corner Press Anthology, Convergence, Poetry Now, Wild Edges, Kyoto Journal & The Christian Science Monitor. She has two chapbooks: Pony Fish and Blueberries on Mars from Poets Corner Press. Her interests are, her two boys, art, and the theater, where she has performed live on stage in Sacramento, Stockton, Salt Lake, and elsewhere.