Grant Christie and Jennie McCormick. Ever heard of them? Eily Mac Adam? Rings a bell. Deep, deep in memory. Here's a hint. Saw the name somewhere. Can't be sure. Maybe, just maybe on this web site.

Time to tell. Time to explain the link.

Grant and Jennie are amateur astronomers, Grant from Aukland, and Jennie from Pakuranga, both New Zealanders.. Eily was an Irish poet, nach maireann, born in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal.

How the three come together in the June 2005 issue of this e-zine is a story worth telling.

Unexpectedly, two days before reading about Jennie and Grant, a sonnet written by Eily came to light. At the bottom of an old attaché case it had lain for more than forty years, completely forgotten.

The sonnet that Eily titled "The Crib" requires study, reflection, absorption in silence. Its opening lines reveal its origin. Written in the very early days of space exploration, when names like Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and American astronaut John Glenn were featured in every newspaper in the world - most countries hadn't television back then - it looked forward to the day man would land on the Moon, and beyond.

Thanks to the Hubble space telescope and unmanned spacecraft such as Cassini and Odyssey, that once mysterious beyond is shedding its veils, and each new discovery reveals more of uncharted moons, suns, planets, galaxies, and here is where Christie and McCormick come into the story.
As part of an international team of astronomers they have discovered a hitherto unknown planet 15,000 light years from Earth. As already stated, the announcement of their discovery came two days after Eily's long forgotten sonnet came to light. . Grant used a 14-inch (35cm) telescope, and Jennie a 10-inch (25cm) telescope.
The bringing together of the New Zealand astronomers and the Irish poet may seem a coincidence. But it happened. A minor miracle? Or random chance? Of such are traveller's tales made.

THE CRIB

Speeding his probing envoys into dizzy space,
Man, crying for the moon with no impotent cry,
Bids fair to conquer. Soon perhaps this earthly race
Will roam moon-valleys or foes on Mars descry,
Or - they say could be - on star uncharted, behold,
With awe, Unfallen Man in Eden innocence
That looks on the face of God and with fear grow cold,
Sudden aware of sin and need for penitence.
Then might these stainless ones, in wonder wide-eyed,
Hear travellers' tales of earth at Christmas tide
And, hearing, plumb afresh the depths of Love Divine.
Pondering Faith and Mercy, their clear eyes ashine
With sweet touch of envy of faith-dowered-ones who see,
In crude bambino laid on straw, God's majesty.

Eily Mac Adam

For more on Eily Mac Adam see http://www.vindicator.ca/history/vinStory/vinStory2.asp in The Vindicator Story.

Postscript At sometime in her early life Eily forsook the Scottish "Mc" for the Irish "Mac", hence the discrepancy in the spelling of her surname..

For Marc Garneau on "Canada's place in space" see http://www.innovationcanada.ca/16/en/

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