Space tornadoes

An eye aimed on our galaxy,

the most powerful and complex

radio telescope ever built on earth,

the Atacama Large Millimeter/

submillimeter Array -let’s call her ALMA-

has detected slender filaments,

a kind of space tornado,

near the massive black hole

at the center of the Milky Way.

The tornadoes contain silicon oxide,

whose structure is shaped by shock waves,

and organic molecules such as methanol,

methyl cyanide, and  cyanoacetylene.

A likely means for these compounds

to be efficiently distributed throughout

that neighborhood corner

of the Universe we call the Milky Way.

Is that as beautiful to you as it is to me?

Like the spiral shell of a snail

or the songs of whales and nightingales?

Is that a leaf blower that I hear

outside the the kitchen window,

or the echo of a Tijuana radio station

between Howling Wolf's Smokestack Lightnin'

before the needle drops on Little Richard

telling Lucille if she won't do it her sister will.

Maybe that's the howl of space tornadoes.