Just in case the next post is too boring

Oh, but you're watching TV! You're a writer! You should be out becoming one with the grass, or whatever writers do.

Bill Prisbrey, Moscow, Idaho, 13 March 1996

Merely the Sky

Looked at the sky
for the first time in twenty years
last night

Through the rooftops and over the trees
Orion has sheathed his sword ant the arm
of Betelgeuse
waves friendly
his nebula fierce in ruby brilliance
stops the comets

Bitter melancholy and anticipating joy
when Orion head and shoulders appear
at the east of the winter horizon

Recall:
Big Dipper
seven stars, one double, one galaxy
compass of the cosmos
follow the pointers to Polaris
then speed on down to Spica
without forgetting Taurus' head
and the knot of the Seven Sisters

Ghosts indeed exist
as they manifest nightly
in catblack skies
that light, infinite photos of so many lumens
poor earthly equivalent candlelight
earthward, outward
when God was young
and falls to earth while men are old

Do they still glow?

Or like fireflies, do they return to the dust from whence they came?

Gentle Fomalhault
a star of some sort, assumed
once known but now only a name

Fomalhault looks down
merely thinks the same

Once part of little life -- now merely the sky