On Saturday, Feb. 17, I was asked to perform two slam poems at Lowell Observatory’s I Heart Pluto Festival, held at the Orpheum Theatre in Flagstaff.

The event celebrates the moment on Feb. 18, 1930, when 24-year-old amateur astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who was working at Lowell, used the observatory’s instruments to pick out from the black a tiny speck of light some 4.7 billion miles away.

After confirming the discovery, Lowell Observatory announced the new planet to the world that March, making the front pages of newspapers around the globe, after which millions of readers likely searched atlases to find this unheard-of place called “Flagstaff.”

Even with the formal demotion of Pluto from planet to “dwarf planet” in 2006, Northern Arizona still celebrates the momentous discovery with an annual festival. I performed last year and was glad that Lowell Observatory Historian Kevin Schindler, a Sedona resident, invited me back.

Both of the poems are posted on my personal blog, but in summary, the first poem, “To the Planet Formerly Known as Pluto,” is an open letter to the ninth planet contemplating some of its eccentricities and lamenting Pluto’s demotion to “dwarf planet” status, wondering if Pluto can see our nations’ borders or tell us humans apart and asking, “If we one day reach you / dig our fingers into your dirt / would you care about what language we used / to tell each other how beautiful the moment was?”

The second poem is dedicated to Tombaugh, whose ashes were aboard the New Horizons space probe that took the first clear photographs of Pluto’s surface, and imagines them as old friends who finally meet and wonders what they talked about before the data from the probe made the 4.5-hour journey at lightspeed back to earth.

Last year’s keynote speakers were Tombaugh’s son Alden Tombaugh, and International Space Station astronaut Nichole Stott, whom my daughter absolutely adored.

This year’s keynote was Diana Gabaldon, a Flagstaff author who wrote the 10-book “Outlander” series and is the great-granddaughter of one of the brothers who built the observatory dome from which Pluto was discovered.

In additional to local elected officials, also speaking this year was Arizona Rep. Justin Wilmeth [R-District 2], a Phoenix lawmaker who is sponsoring House Bill 2477, which would designate Pluto as the “official planet” of Arizona. Wilmeth was wearing a custom T-shirt that read “Pluto is a planet” with an image of Pluto.

No, Arizona is not claiming Pluto as an Arizona province. Yes, earth is still the planet on which we live. No, the desig­nation is not some hair-brained scheme to export our crazies off-world; they all still live comfortably in West Sedona.

Wilmeth’s bill is perfectly logical. He said during his remarks that he grew up watching Space Shuttle launches and wanted to join the U.S. Air Force to become an astro­naut, but his science grades wouldn’t let him get that far. He toured Lowell Observatory last spring with a legislative delegation and was impressed with the facility and the $37 million, 40,000-square-foot Marley Foundation Astronomy Discovery Center set to open later this year.

“A couple of months ago, I came up with the crazy idea to make Pluto the state planet. Because, again, we’re the only state to have discovered a planet, right?” Wilmeth said. “I love history. I love space and I said, ‘I don’t know, let’s just make Pluto the state planet.’”

Arizona already has an official flower, the giant saguaro cactus blossom. Turquoise is our state gem, copper is our metal, the cactus wren is our bird, the two-tailed swallow­tail is the state butterfly, the ringtail is the state mammal. Arizona even has an official neckwear: The bolo tie.

“We’re defenders and purveyors of our state history and this happened here,” Wilmeth said. “In 1930, we discovered a planet — in Arizona — the state wasn’t even 20 years old yet. That’s pretty phenomenal.”

Wilmeth added that Arizona has 7.5 million people and a lot of new residents are from somewhere else and don’t know about Arizona’s unique thumbprint on the solar system. House Bill 2477 is perhaps the shortest bill intro­duced in the history of the legislature, and merely amends the state emblems chapter to read: “Pluto is the official state planet.”

“It’s getting people talking about the momentous discovery that was made here, and that alone has made it worth doing this,” Wilmeth said. “I want people to talk about this history. And if there’s some 7-year-old in their class in some middle school that hears this debate, ‘Is it a planet or is it not?’ they’ll find out that it was discovered here in Arizona. They’ll be able to bug their parents to come up here on some weekend and see this new Discovery Center … Maybe that will create one of the people that goes to Mars … or colo­nizes the moon.”

The bill has already passed committee and had a floor vote on Monday, Feb. 19, 94 years and one day after Pluto was discovered. It passed 52-0, with seven legislators absent.

It will now head to the Senate for a similar vote. Wilmeth said to us in the green room after the event that he hopes to hold a signing event with Gov. Katie Hobbs at Lowell Observatory sometime in April.

Pluto may not be a planet to most people on earth, but it will still be one, by law, sort of, in Arizona, and perhaps one that might inspire children to plant their feet on other planets, maybe even Pluto someday, in the decades to come.

Christopher Fox Graham

Larson Newspapers

“To the Planet Formerly Known as Pluto”

By Christopher Fox Graham, April 20, 2012

To the planet formerly known as Pluto,

Though we will never meet
I think I know you

I am a speck of organic matter
standing on the surface of your sister
my people and I
are converted from ice and dust
electrified into existence
by the mere circumstances
of your sister Earth and nephew Moon
dancing with tide pools
when they were still in their infancy

mere molecules slammed together
and held onto each other in strings
which took billions of years
to mistake themselves in their reproduction
to form this all-too-young boy
sending you this letter

forgive my impetuousness, dear Pluto
but compared to you,
I only have a second
before this organic matter caves in on itself
becomes dust and water to form something new

all I have is my voice
and I beg you to listen
because although we will never meet
I think I know you

I’m not sure if you will receive this letter
In the time it takes to reach you,
I could bounce between here and the sun 16 times
measured on your timescale
my country is not even a year old yet

You’re farther away from the sun
than any of your siblings
and while the rest of those planets circulate in lockstep
in the same elliptical orbit

yours is full of highs and lows
as you rise above the plane
and drop beneath it
because you’re either bipolar
of just refuse to conform

be glad you’ve been able to do it so long
here, those who are different
either by choice or accident
wind up getting bullied, brutalized or crucified

and while I could explain what those words mean
let’s hope that by the time one of us stands on your surface
we’ve forgotten what they mean, too

At Lowell Observatory in the hills overlooking Flagstaff
astronomer Clyde Tombaugh picked you out from the black
he watched you wander at the edge of the solar system
and noted how you keep your distance
from everyone else like you

I know what it feels like to be alone, too
there are times when people here
believe the sun is so far away they don’t feel warm anymore
and they stare out into the black
and wonder what’s like to just let go

I’m glad you’ve stayed with us, dear Pluto
you show us that even when the universe is terrifying cold
there’s some light to hold on to
some reason to keep moving

and even out there you and your moon Charon
prove you can find love anywhere

since we began to worship stars
we have followed your siblings
the rocky worlds, the gas giants
to us, if they were bigger than an asteroid or moon
and weren’t furnaces like the sun,
they were a planet
deserving the name of a god
an astrological house
and a certain amount of inexplicable reverence

you were nine children of a yellow sun
on the rural edge of the galaxy

but now because your size doesn’t fit new rules
the International Astronomical Union on my planet
has decided you are no longer are one

you don’t meet the qualifications anymore

you no longer govern an astrological house

they took you away from you were to us

because some ink on paper said you didn’t matter anymore

they put you a box labeled “dwarf planets” or “Plutoids”
only to be ostracized from your brothers and sisters
by faceless strangers at the stroke of pen

here, we label people too,
segregate them into boxes
based on the color of their skins
or which one of those gods they called out to while dying
or whether they love someone with the same or different parts
or in what way they their throats make noises to communicate
or even by where they were born
as if point of origin means anything
on a planet spinning 1,600 kilometers per second,
where specks like me have wandered to every part of it

tell me, dear Pluto
can you see the borders of our nations from out there?
it seems that’s all we can see down here sometimes
can you tell us apart?
if we one day reach you
dig our fingers into your dirt
would you care about what language we used
to tell each other
how beautiful the moment was?

Dear Pluto,
I know what it feels like to be small
I’m still a little boy, too
playing grown-up games
wondering what happens
when there’s nothing left to orbit anymore

Though we will never meet
you don’t have to answer this letter if it ever reaches you
but I think you know me,
I am a tiny voice on your sister Earth
and you are Pluto, the ninth planet of the sun

“Clyde Tombaugh”

A companion poem to “Dear Pluto,” by Christopher Fox Graham, January 27, 2016

The Kansas boy stares into the sky
counting stars with his fingers
pretending he can touch each one
playing piano keys with constellations

the spheres make music most us will never hear
but he orchestrates symphonies
oboes in Orion
clarinets in Cancer
violins in Virgo
percussion rumbling off supernova timpanies
snare drums on the skin of black holes
while spinning quasars keep perfect rhythm

the boy, now a teen measures stars with his telescopes
built from leftover parts
shaping steel and mirrors
to bend the light down into his hands
he wants to hold the weight of stardust
in his palm

the boy, now a man,
works on Mars Hill
the evening shift at Lowell Observatory
scouring the images for differences
one single speck out of place
but these were skies he could paint from memory

on a night like tonight
a cold February
the man became a boy again
when he found a spot
hide-and-seeking with him
telling him the stars and planets were looking back at us
an undiscovered instrument
making music he was the first to hear

a ninth symphony he held for a moment
heard alone, echoing in solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world

76 years later,
nine years after his death
mankind’s ship in a bottle
broke the bonds of earth to reach out
and find New Horizons
in the cold dark of space

in a case no bigger than heart of a boy
now 2.97 billion miles from Kansas
from Mars Hill
from our entire history
are the ashes of the man who first heard the music

after six years alone in the dark
he traveled farther than anyone in history
to visit a world unseen by human eyes

and last July, the man became a boy again
matching his imagination to the globe in front of him
visiting an undiscovered country held for a moment
a solitary discovery
before he shared it with the world

at that distance, signals and light take 4 and half hours to reach home
in those hours,
Clyde Tombaugh,
you had a world captivated in the silence
waiting 4 billion years
for someone to visit

what did you talk about?

did she ask
what the sun feels like
when so much closer?

how it warms your skin in summer?

did she tell you her story?

what it’s like to be so far away, alone in night?

how her years pass in centuries?

did you tell her about us?

about Kansas
about Mars Hill
about what it feels like to hold stardust in your palm?

did you tell her there were 7 billion boys and girls back home
waiting to see her for the first time?

was she eager to meet you since she first saw you
playing hide and seek with your telescopes
or counting stars with your fingers

or did she just sing a song?

one half of an unfinished duet
a harmony you already knew
something slow and beautiful
a secret
only two lovers
can understand