The Hubble Telescope

The Hubble Telescope symbolizes both looking into the past as well as looking into the future. In several poems the speaker describes their father’s work on the telescope during the eighties. As such, the instrument almost becomes something of a relic to them as they so closely associate it with the memory of their father who has since passed. This is implied by the way in which they describe the time period surrounding the telescope’s construction in the poem “My God, It’s Full of Stars.” However, the telescope itself as a scientific tool was designed to look deeper and more clearly into space in order to gain a better understanding of the universe and subsequently use that knowledge to advance humanity. Thus, the telescope takes on two contrasting connotations with ties to both the past and the future.

The Living Man