1.
To start your research feels as if
you’re walking through a busy street.
The city lights shine all around,
billboards, lanterns, shops compete.

Structure is still hard to find,
with new facts here, opinions there.
Your eyes glide along high facades
to find support up in the air.

Three close friends you always see,
Strong Orion and the Great Bear,
Cassiopeia clear up high,
despite the light through which you stare.

2.
With hope to find a clearer sky,
you leave behind the crowded space.
Stars appearing as you walk,
a framework starts to fall in place.

Details keep appearing still,
new constellations taking shape,
as you wander past the rural land,
till darkness fills the full landscape.

3.
No light pollution hides the sky
full of ideas, theories and claims.
You can study Ursa minor
and those without such well-known names,

Probing deeper in the sky,
connections grow and start to hide
the friends, the theories, once held dear,
no longer valued as a guide.

Thus
Where city lights drown out all thoughts
the rural land too intervenes.
Be aware that noise is found
in crowded and deserted scenes.

Explanation
The poem takes light pollution in the city and the abundance of stars in the countryside as a metaphor for the different challenges researches face during their project or career. At first, there is such an information overload that its’s hard to form ideas and you’re holding onto a few straws that come back in many papers. As you progress in your project or career, you start to form a framework that you can connect new information to. As you start to learn more details, you might become so lost in the details that you forget to see the bigger picture. It’s inspired by my own experiences with starting new projects and stargazing over the summer.