A long time ago
A time quite known
There was a man
Who was seeking the truth
Who's wish was to understand
The path drawn by the hand
The way of the wandering
He wished
Hence his truth
Stained
Circles he thought
Was what the hand would draw
All wandering quite agreed
But one did not
He was defiant
Back he went
Forth later
Lunacy was inherent
The way he tread
The hand the man doubted
Had but made a mistake
A mistake
Or just a perspective
Shall remain unknown
A circle
Eccentric
Was defined
Two centers
It had
Perplexed our man
Circles he thought
Defined perfection
Had it not been this wanderer
Who chose to defy
Our man
He would have been kept
Away
From the truth
The truth
That eccentric
Are the paths
That all who wander
Follow
Its only the perspective
That defines the lunacy
The eccentricity
The path of the wanderer.
The hand
Could have made a mistake
But who knows
He too might have been
Eccentric
At least a little bit.
The poem is about Kepler's quest to understand planetary orbits, which he thought should be circular. The to and fro movement of mars (also loop the loop motion) didn't fit the hypothesis of circular orbits. In the end he had to abandon his idea of circles to ellipses, which fit the anomalous movement of mars perfectly.
