The poem “The Gathering Storm” shares many similarities with “Dangerous Astronomy”. Alexie explores the mind of a father who wants to be brave and hide his true feelings. This poem also opens with the father describing nature, but it involves thunder and lightning rather than just stars. There is always a violent image, but this violent image begins at the beginning of the poem and gets worse as it progresses, especially in the last stanza. Once again, there are children, and it is the mother who “soothed the baby”. This poem focuses on lies and death rather than resentment towards a mother-son relationship. Instead of feeling hopeless like the father in “Dangerous Astronomy,” this father persists because he refuses to let Death take his family. In this poem, the father compares himself to his brother and to Death rather than to the mother. Although both poems are open-ended and have a twist, the endings contrast well with each other. The poem "Dangerous Astronomy" ends on a somewhat positive note because the poem began with a well-meaning father, who becomes jea...