International Astropoetic Dialogues (4)

by David Asher and Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

The Meteor Predictor’s Limerick
by David Asher

You face quite a serious restriction
If you publish a meteor prediction,
Because if you are wrong,
It sure won’t be long
Before all your work’s treated as fiction.

Copyright © 2000, David Asher

The Meteor Observer’s Limerick
by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

I think I really have a wonderful chance
If a prediction is stronger than a lance,
Because from “to be”
To “or not to be”
I can fully enjoy the meteor dance.

Copyright © 2005, Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

Dr. David Asher is a counselor of the International Meteor Organization and a professional astronomer at Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, UK. A specialist in near-Earth objects and predictor of meteor showers (especially well known for his Leonid research), he is frequently invited to international astronomical conferences and solicited by Japanese and Australian observatories. David recited the Predictor’s Limerick at the IMO Conference 2000 in Pucioasa, Romania.

Andrei Dorian Gheorghe is the founder and director of the Cosmopoetry Festival of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy-SARM. He is the editor of over 30 slim English anthologies of Romanian and international astropoetry, and is the author of original astropoetry performances presented at the International Meteor Organization Conferences 1997-2004, the Leonid MAC Workshop of NASA (Tel Aviv, 2000), and the European Convention of Science Fiction - Romania 2001. In 2003, he initiated the Meteor Contemporary Poetry Project for the IMO. More of this poet's work may be found in the SARM Golden Astropoetic Gallery.