A Sequence of Clerihews.
From Romeo Esparrago.
I. The Undertaker.
White dwarf J thirteen-twenty-eight
Long ago met its fiery fate;
Now, cold and tidy as a tomb,
It keeps a graveyard in the gloom.
II. The Inner Ghoul.
The inner survivor, a few kilometres wide,
Is the zombie that lived when its neighbors died;
It shuffles a ring of magnesium gore,
Gnawing the crust off a planet’s core.
III. The Outer Shambler
The outer survivor, as big as Pluto,
Lurches along with nowhere to go-to;
Its ring’s been picked clean of magnesium,
Yet it moans for more, or at least for some.
IV. The Coroner’s Report
X-Shooter, on the Very Large Telescope,
Read the corpses’ spectral horoscope:
Calcium, oxygen, iron. Oh dear,
Rocky remains, like the ones around here.
V. The Sleepless Astronomer
Nicola Pietro Gentile Fusillo
Can no longer rest upon his pillow;
He’s seen two rings with a gap between,
Kept tidy by an undead machine.
VI. Our Star
The Sun, our dependable daytime pal,
Will someday swell and lose its morale;
It’ll shed its layers, shrink small and white,
And may swallow the Earth in one swollen bite.
VII. Are We Next?
The Earth, our lovely blue-green ball,
May not survive the Sun’s last sprawl.
Are we next? Relax, my friend,
It’s billions of years before the end.
🪐
Author’s Notes : Inspired by the European Southern Observatory ESO’s press release “Dead star and planetary bodies: astronomers spot unique disc of debris that foretells Solar System’s future” (27 October 2026): https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2613/.
About Romeo Esparrago : His son, when he was in kindergarten, believed he taught Michael Jackson how to dance to “Thriller”.
