Where Stars Come From
I
Out the window tonight Orion stands, those
three stars, like the tailor’s belt, marking death.
As she watches, the sky changes, rotates,
a reflection of the path she walks on earth.
In August meteors spray across the clear,
solid black. She asks where, why. He tells her
they are souls. Stored until they shoot into birth.
And when they die, when we die, we go home.
II
We stand on the bow of the uneasy boat.
The inside straight is gray, choppy,
unsteady enough that we quickly snap
into the lifeline on the foredeck.
We don’t talk as he carefully raises
the silver sextant, then lowers it
to wipe salt spray off the wet eye
piece, the smudged horizon mirror.
We smile, look up as the clouds
part, leaving just a moment to see
Jupiter dripping, an earring
off the edge of the crescent moon.
III
May brings northwest rain.
She can’t see stars
through the gray mist,
can’t see the vapor trail
he might have left her.
Eventually, she wonders,
will she be able to lie
on her stomach in
this churchyard Stonehenge,
sight the sky
and plot him moving
from point
to point?
(Published by Straight Forward Poetry, Issue Ten, 12/20/15)
K J Poetry 