Bright Star

 

The stars

so bright.

I had to search online

and find

what it was I saw out there.

Orion I knew

thanks to you.

Mars

not hard.

But the others?

So many.

One so bright

I thought it must be

a plane.

Plain to see –

it was Sirius.

No, seriously.

 

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune.

That’s a lot of planets (they look like stars; only astronomers know the difference)

to see

all at once.

And the constellations. O! the constellations.

Unchanged since Aristotle, and Galileo, and Shakespeare.

Unchanged since the Celts and the Vikings.

We humans have changed, but not you,

you Stars, you!

You are the stuff of which philosophy is made.

 

Do we shine

like this

to you?

to the other stars?

Do they—the people, the aliens, the others—

look up

and see us?

Do they go out

in their slippers

and stand

in the cold

and marvel?

 

Monasterevin

November 24th, very early